Moving On
by Javanyet
Summary: After Last Night Nick and Maura find a new incarnation in the rural U.S. Chapter 12: Surprise visitors raise unwelcome possibilities for both Maura and Nick.
1. Leaving behind

He woke much sooner than normal. The unnatural suddenness of it left him disoriented. A low humming surrounded him in the complete darkness, an unfamiliar sound. Where was the candlelight? He was curled in a fetal position, unable to stretch out full length. And he was alone. Wait. Concentrate. Thoughts began to gel. The hum was from the wheels on the highway. The dark, closely confined space was familiar, though not experienced recently. When had he had reason to, recently? He was alone because… they were moving on, and she was taking them there. Resigned to whatever unknown length of time might remain, he moved his head to shake the hair away from his face and collided with the softness beneath. Smiling, he remembered her insistence on putting a pillow there despite his own insistence it was unnecessary, that he wouldn't even notice it. Remembering the look on her face as he finally acquiesced, he realized it was a different kind of comfort that concerned her but this was all she could provide at the time. He closed his eyes, or maybe they were still open. There wasn't even enough ambient light for him to tell. He tried to concentrate on the darkness, the humming, and focus on whatever would lie ahead. He'd moved on so many times, too many to recall all of them. In the past century he'd always traveled alone. Before that, his only companions were joined by blood: the master and the converted. This time his companion was joined to him by another kind of blood. His choice, and hers, but only one of them would last forever. And this time so much of what would once have been left painfully behind was gone before they made their escape. Tracy, who'd been right. He could have trusted her. Vachon, who did trust her, whose loss left Maura in the kind of pain he couldn't hope to ease; it would have to heal itself. And Natalie… he'd stopped himself, on the edge of no return he managed to pull away and deliver her, anonymously, to the nearest ER. He'd reached one last time for one last theory, believed one last time that he wanted it, deranged by grief and guilt and forgetting yet again what an impossible fantasy it was. But he'd managed to remember in time, before destroying the one who deserved his love possibly more than any other even if she'd relinquished all hope of having it. Natalie would wake abandoned, heartbroken, but she'd survive. LaCroix alone would remain virtually unchanged. Having left in disgust as Natalie's final plea was answered, LaCroix would continue as always. A final phone call to the precinct from a pay phone at the edge of the city, just before sunrise, just before retiring into darkness to wait for what came next. Waiting, being the moved rather than the mover, was also unfamiliar. Janette… would they find her, where they were going? If not this place, maybe the next?

* * *

Of the two of them, Maura had been able to recover herself sooner. Nick had lost his partner, had nearly killed his best friend. Who was she kidding; she knew she'd never completely understand the depth of what was between Nick and Natalie. Except maybe what a painful tearing sensation they'd both be left with, for who knows how long. She'd come home that night to the empty loft just after Nick had taken Natalie to the hospital; LaCroix hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut when he arrived at Raven. She hadn't known about Tracy until Nick burst in seconds ahead of sunrise. Too much loss, it was too much to get her head around in such a few days. She was still reeling from Vachon's destruction, still trying to think of a way to let Tracy know she wasn't the only one who'd been aware of his true nature. Maura hoped at least her deeper knowledge of what he was might help her convince Tracy she couldn't have saved him. But now Tracy was gone, too. Suddenly all the talk she'd heard about "moving on", from Janette and Nick and even Vachon, what they'd said about knowing when it was time, all of it fell into place and made inarguable sense. For an entire miserable day and night Nick holed up in the loft and Maura struggled between being there for him and knowing when to leave him to himself. Nick emailed his report to the captain who of course encouraged some days off. LaCroix didn't question her absence from Raven. She supposed it didn't matter that much to him either way, though she suspected he was aware of his son's torment.

The second night they sat side by side on the sofa, looking at one another in the dimness of the living room lit only by candles and firelight. Nick's rage of confusion and grief had settled into a controlled sadness. It had been nearly a decade since he'd felt this kind of pull to go, and he didn't know whether Maura would understand. She hadn't the last time he'd considered it. All he knew was that he wasn't up to the debate, not this time. She broke the silence first.

"Remember that time before we went away, I said I knew the day would come when it'd be time to go?" She couldn't quite complete the thought, but when he took her hand she continued in a shaky voice, "There's so little left to stay for now, and so many questions to face if you stayed long enough to let them ask."

Nick stared at the fire but gave Maura's hand a squeeze. "And don't forget the bridge I burned."

She tugged on his hand and he faced her again. "You almost made it across this time, that counts for something."

"I almost killed the best friend I've had in half a lifetime. Half_ my_ lifetime." His voice was hollow with self-reproach.

Now Maura reached to take his other hand. "But you _didn't_. And you trusted Natalie, like you'd never let yourself do before, you did it this time and she has to know it. Even if you never see her again, and you know that's not a sure thing, you both know you finally trusted her enough…" Enough for what? Maura knew if it had all been possible, if what Natalie proposed (what Maura had regarded as a third-hand vampire legend, as unreliable as rumors of… Les Prisées?) had worked it would have changed the life she had here with Nick, maybe even ended it. Was it just that it was _safe_ to praise him now? Now that it no longer posed a risk, she had the luxury of acknowledging Nick's loss.

"I know what you're trying to say. " He paused, then kissed the palm of her hand. "Doucette, this must be so confusing for you."

Maura took her hand away then pressed it to the center of Nick's chest. "Not so much. I think I always knew there was room for all of us in that silent heart of yours." Room for her and Natalie, and Janette, and every undeniable love that came before. She stood to turn on a couple of lamps, then blew out the candles and turned to face him.

"So. Where to now?" It was his entire incarnation that would change, so the choice should be his.

Suddenly Nick felt overwhelmed with weariness greater than any he could remember. "I've been choosing lives for eight hundred years. I'm so _tired_ of choosing…" As he trailed off Maura went to him and bent to kiss the edge of his jaw just under his right ear, where she always went to ease the hurting that words couldn't touch.

"Then I'll see what Aristotle can come up with." She went to the computer and sent an email.

"_Aristotle: Moving on. Somewhere quiet."_

She looked over her shoulder at Nick, who had moved to the floor and lay staring into the fireplace.

"_Very__ quiet. The country, maybe somewhere that might remind Nick of better days and remind me that there's something out there besides cities and bars. It doesn't have to be far, just far enough. I don't mind driving. Thanks, ML." _

She sighed and clicked "Send", then joined Nick where he lay with his chin propped on his folded arms. She settled alongside him, one hand burrowing under the hair that curled over the back of his collar, thumb rubbing gently back and forth.

"Next stop, anywhere but here," she promised. When he turned his head to the side she could see the fire reflected in a red wash of unshed tears.

"Oh doucette, I hope so."


	2. Moving forward

Barely an hour later the computer's email announcer bleated for attention. Nick had dozed off where he and Maura lay on the floor, so she went to open the message.

"Already?" Nick slurred drowsily from his spot by the fireplace.

"If he wasn't a master, I wouldn't have asked him to help." She printed the message out without getting much past the greeting: _It's about time._

She sat on the floor near Nick and paraphrased what she was reading. "_'In accordance with your wishes… a village known as 'Peacham Vermont. Not too far from Toronto, but far enough, a very rural area though within reasonable driving distance of the city of Burlington and the capital city of Montpelier. Attached are two available real estate listings… will arrange purchase third party upon request… employment of various kinds available appropriate for Nick's résumé and your own'_. Well I should hope so, for yours at least. It covers everything from roof thatching to law enforcement." Maura read further in silence, then paused. Raising an eyebrow she announced without looking at Nick, "According to Aristotle there's something of a catch, regarding U.S. immigration. They've gotten pretty attentive, and added multiple agencies and bureaus. Too many even for him to hack into and alter, it seems. So we'd have to take care of something up here first if it's going to work."

Nick heaved a sigh. He'd hoped this would be relatively simple. Oh well, he supposed most anywhere but Canada would involve immigration issues, and it would probably be wiser to leave the country for awhile. "Okay, what do we have to do to make this happen?"

"Aristotle says there's only one easy way he can '_embed you in the less-complex Canadian system_' and make you disappear without INS inquiries." Now she looked at him uncertainly. "You'd have to be married to an American citizen." When he sat up abruptly she added hastily, "Not really, he'd just fake it for the computer. It'd probably make it easier to blend into the middle of nowhere farm country anyway… you think maybe?" Maura had never bothered to deal with Canadian immigration when she'd arrived in Alberta at the tender age of 20. Considering her "alternative lifestyle" there was little chance anyone would bother to ask.

In spite of his exhaustion and inner turmoil, Nick was forced to smile. "You make it sound like life without parole. What do you think? Can you live with the stigma of being presumed to be Mrs. Nicholas Knight?"

"I've lived with the stigma of a lot worse." But her brow furrowed. "Do you think it's smart to keep the same name? Like maybe you should become, I dunno, Nick O'Reilly or Nick Douglas or something?"

"How about 'Nicholas Logue'?" He was grateful to have something, anything, to joke about.

"That's one curse even you couldn't outlive."

"All right then, why not tempt fate and keep the same name twice in a row. You tell Aristotle to go ahead and invent a marriage of convenience."

"Hey, at least my name's already on the checkbook." They'd never altered the legal changes he'd made when he'd abandoned her to travel with LaCroix. Not wanting to appear too cavalier, she waved her left hand to show off the emerald ring she never, ever removed. "And I already have the appropriate jewelry."

"So do I." Nick went upstairs as Maura sat waiting with a puzzled expression. He reappeared moments later with a small, ornately carved wooden box. When he opened it she saw a beautiful gold band engraved with interlocked fleur-de-lis. He removed it from the box and handed it to her. "Why don't you do the honors."

"C'mon, Bats…" but she saw he wasn't kidding. She inspected the ring more closely, and could barely make out an inscription in French wrought in impossibly tiny, elegant script inside the band: _devant maintenant, après demain, en mon coeur toujours_. She was less than enraptured. "Nick… this is your ring from before. From Alyssa."

He shook his head and smiled gently, understanding. "No, doucette. It was given to me by my mother, who knew it would be saved for the right time."

"But when you married Alyssa… you didn't wear this?"

"When I married Alyssa, I'd forgotten I had it. I was LaCroix' latest fledgling, and lost in my untested powers. So tell me… was Maman right? Is this the right time?"

Maura shrugged reflexively. "Sure, why not?" Then Nick's steady gaze drew a more honest reply, the one he deserved. "Yes. I mean it's not as if we don't know it's forever. It's not as if we even have a choice. Immigration or not, it is what it is." She slid the ring on Nick's left ring finger. "So there you are. I now pronounce you stuck with me."

"I've lived with the stigma of a lot worse."

Of the property listings Aristotle had sent, they decided on a red Cape sitting on ten acres of meadow and woods. In addition to the house there was a large barn with two sets of enormous doors, but what closed the deal was a small, separate artist's studio built much later than the house and barn.

"Nick, just think, a whole space just for your painting! And the house, well we wouldn't even have to redecorate or fix anything, we could just move in."

He was examining the various photos of the rooms in the main house with some hesitancy. "It all looks a little, well, bright." While there was a den paneled in beautiful dark honey pine and the studio was finished in the same wood, the other rooms in the house were painted in lighter colors such as pale sage, yellow, and white. At first glance it was a little jarring.

"Yeah, it is isn't it," Maura leaned over his shoulder to see. "I guess we could change it if you want, sure."

Nick couldn't help but notice the wistfulness in her voice, and saw the look in her eyes as well. She'd been living here surrounded by his dark walls and darker furniture and moody lighting for so long, and had lost so much to darkness even before they'd met. So had he, he had to admit. He swiveled in the chair to look straight at her. "I wouldn't hear of it. Maybe it's time to change more than my… our incarnation." He pointed to an exterior shot. "There's a lot of windows but they're a manageable size, it should be easy for Aristotle to arrange for blinds to fit them."

"But too many for a remote…" Maura noted doubtfully.

"Well maybe it's time to stop pushing buttons, too. Think how much we'll save on batteries."

As if he had to worry about such expenses. Aristotle was set to transfer all necessary funds for the sale from a de Brabant Foundation account direct to the seller's bank, and another sizable chunk to any bank Nick and Maura chose for their new home base. Maura sat down on Nick's lap, suddenly overwhelmed.

"We're really gonna do this. We're going to start a whole new life in a whole new place. " Nick traced light fingers along her cheek and into her hair.

"We are, and this time you get to choose the colors, for everything. You've turned away from the light for me for long enough, Sweet. I think this could be a chance for me to rediscover the kind of existence I used to enjoy. I haven't been able to feel the sunlight in 800 years, but I managed to bring the dark right inside with me. It happened so gradually, I'm not sure I even noticed it." He looked around the loft, realizing that virtually all of the furnishings and possessions were his, and that Maura had only shared them. "Let's make a list of what to take. We don't need to drag all this stuff along. You've got to help me decide what we really want to keep."

"But Nick, this is all yours, your home, your _life_. I can't just tell you what to leave behind," Maura protested.

He moved her off of his lap and gestured at a random collection of artifacts scattered here and there, all of them things he'd kept with him simply because they'd once been part of lives he no longer led. "So much of this belongs to the past. I need to start making a life that belongs to now. And to both of us. Okay?"

"Okay." She paused and then asked almost shyly, "Can we please keep the sofa? I _really_ like the sofa." So much of their life together had been explored, decided, created there, so many nights slouched together watching TV, reading, sleeping. It would break her heart to leave it.

Nick had to agree. "Of course we can. We can keep whatever you want, whatever will make you happy."

She threw her arms around his neck. "That's easy. You're all I need to make me happy, wherever we go."

He pressed his forehead against hers. "I'd rather not travel _quite_ that light. Now instead of wasting the new moon on lists and plans, why don't we go upstairs and visit another piece of furniture I _really_ like." The gold pulsing in his eyes was impossible to miss and she shivered as he nibbled under her ear.

"Oh, we're gonna keep that too," Maura assured him as he flew them upstairs.

"The bedrooms in that house look smaller than this one," he warned as he laid Maura down on the bed and stretched out to lean over her. "It might not fit."

"So we'll knock out a wall," she muttered impatiently, "you gonna talk all night?"

"In your dreams, mortal." He dropped onto her with a growl.

* * *

Just four days after Tracy's death, as Grace was picking up Natalie from the hospital, after calls and arrangements had been made for their destination, after packing was scheduled and storage purchased to await request for delivery, Maura went to Nick as he hung up the phone for the last time. She reached down, unplugged it, and stood to face him.

"I love you, Nicolas 'Your Name Here'." She picked up his left hand and kissed the gold band he wore. "I just thought before we take off for the great wherever… you should know."

"And all along I thought you were in it for the kinky sex."

Lame jokes dulled the pain, for both of them. They'd faxed the lists of what to pack and what to leave behind to the moving company, with instructions to donate appropriate pieces to museums or charities. It was less than an hour to sunrise; it would be at least an eight-hour drive to their new home and everything they were bringing with them was packed in the back seat to leave room for Nick in the trunk of the Caddy. Aside from the clothes, the coolers of blood, and personal items they'd packed for the short term, Maura insisted on bringing only one other thing. Just before they left for the last time, she went to the fireplace and took the silver donut from where it was draped on the corner of the plaque she'd gotten for saving Schanke's life. She dropped the red silk ribbon around her neck and slipped the pendant inside her collar before following Nick to the freight elevator.

Nick didn't risk a final look, holding the elevator door open with his back to the room. He reached a hand out behind him, and Maura took it and held tight. "Let's get outta here," she whispered in his ear, "We're burning moonlight."

The door slid shut behind them, and they moved on.

Across town, Natalie Lambert sat staring at the phone receiver in her hand as it announced for the third time,

"_We're sorry, the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. No more information is available._"

* * *

"Natalie, I don't know where they've gone. They didn't tell anyone, they just left."

Grace was trying to calm her friend. Natalie had been injured in the lab and had lost a great deal of blood, in addition to striking her head when she fell. Though nobody else knew it, Nick had carefully sliced Nat's hand and wrist with a sharp knife then bound it tightly in a tourniquet to support the story before bringing her to the ER. The head wound was his fault entirely; in his haste to pull away from her he'd dropped her on the hard floor of the loft. The marks on her throat would disappear by the time the trauma team saw her. She didn't remember what had happened, not for a while anyway. He'd called Grace at home to meet him at the hospital and planted the hypnotic suggestion of what everyone would need to believe, and a bit more.

"Nick said they had to go, that it was just too hard to stay after Tracy was killed, and you know it was only a year ago Schanke died. And Maura lost her best friend just a few weeks ago, and their friend Janette just took off without a trace. He said Maura can't stand her job now, and I don't have to tell you honey that Nick's heart has just gone out of his too. You'll hear from him again, I'm sure you will. You have too much history not to."

Nat tried to focus on Grace's words, but in her head she was saying you have it backwards… we have too much history for him not to disappear for good. She remembered everything that happened that night in the loft, her desperate pleading, the way Nick seemed to finally acknowledge what they could have together. Maura Logue hadn't existed, for either of them. She wasn't proud of that and guessed Nick was even less so, but we all have lengths we'll go to when we see nothing to lose. She wondered vaguely if he'd tell her. Of course he would. He'd told her already, and they'd left together to go away somewhere they could find a distance from all the recent loss and upheaval. And away from the temptation to return to a decision made some time ago, and try to change it. Only this time, "away" did mean moving on. She looked dully at the envelope Grace just handed her.

"I'll leave you alone with that. I'm sorry, Natalie, I don't think anybody wanted it to end up this way. I'll check in later." She hugged her friend and left.

Natalie stared at the expensive cream colored linen paper, her name written in Nick's elegant hand. She took a breath and unfolded the monogrammed stationery inside.

_Natalie,_

_There's nothing I can say after all that's happened that will make sense of it or that can keep this from hurting you. I'd like to believe I've tried very hard to keep from doing that, but have failed so miserably we both know I'd just be lying to myself again._

_There's not enough left here for me now to make the difficulty of staying worthwhile for any of us. You've known for some time that the work I do has become empty for me; the cycle of human cruelty is endless and all we've been able to do is clean up after it. And with Tracy gone I've lost even the hope that someone else might accomplish more than Schanke and me, and Captain Cohen, and so many others tried to do. And I think you also know that even our friendship couldn't make up for the pain it's caused you, not after what I did that night. In our confusion and grief we both were willing to trade our present, and even our future, for a past longing we'd already recognized was impossible. I can't risk that happening again. _

_And yes, all the things that kept Maura anchored here are gone as well. She has lost her deepest friend with Vachon's death. She grieved for Schanke in ways we're still discovering, and without Vachon and Janette both, the Raven no longer feels like the 'home' it became to her when she first arrived in Toronto. I've lost loved ones for centuries and have managed to accommodate their ghosts; for Maura they crowd every corner and knowing I'm the only reason she'd stay to endure them is something I can't ignore. _

_It's time, Nat. You above all others understand what that means to my kind, and how certain we are when that time has come. I want you to know, I need for you to, that the credit for whatever humanity I've managed to achieve here is yours alone. Mortality is fleeting; humanity endures. There are no words to express what you mean to me, and how you've helped make me whole._

_I will not say we won't meet again, but you've taught me to be too honest with myself to promise that we will._

_Always,_

_Nick_

Not a word she could argue with, not a space left for debate. She shook her head at the letter as if it were his face, smiling bitterly through her tears.

"Damn you, Nicholas."

* * *

**devant maintenant, après demain, en mon coeur toujours**: before now, after tomorrow, forever in my heart


	3. Standing still

When the trunk lid opened even the dim light of the battery operated camp lantern set on the ground hurt Nick's eyes for a moment. He took Maura's hand and climbed out at once, grateful for the chance to stand up. Though his muscles didn't cramp like a mortal's, close confinement was still unpleasant. His eyes adjusted rapidly and he took in their surroundings, realizing they must be in the barn pictured in the realtor's listing. Slivers of light leaked in around the two sets of double barn doors. Shutters covered the few other windows along each side of the building. It was every bit as big as it appeared in the photo. In the shadows at the rear of the space Nick could see large shapes covered by canvas tarps. Vehicles or farm equipment, maybe. Beyond that, a door to what might be another storage area. He looked at Maura without speaking.

"We're there," she announced. "It's a little after 2 in the afternoon. I figured I'd just pull right in the barn and shut us up for the rest of the day. We can go to the house when it gets dark." She reached in the back seat and pulled out a bottle. "Here," she pulled the cork and handed it to him, "you must be starving. At least I could hit a couple drive-thru joints on the way."

He took the bottle and swigged greedily, pausing to gasp "This would probably have been better for you," and then finished the rest in short order.

"More?"

"No, I'm okay for now. We could only bring a case of bottles and it has to last until we can set up another connection."

Maura grinned mischievously. "Ooooh, I feel just like a bootlegger or something."

Nick picked up the lantern to get a better look at her. Her eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles. "Either you're turning into a raccoon, or you need to get some sleep."

She held up her hands and wiggled her thumbs. "Just give me some food to wash in the stream and I'll be fine." When this didn't raise a smile she turned her back and wiggled her butt instead. "So check out my bushy tail, then."

"As impressed as I am by your bushy tail," he gave it a pat and circled to face her, "how about you check out the inside of your eyelids for a bit." Looking around the dirt floor nearby, he noticed a stack of what looked like quilts used to wrap furniture for storage. "Ah, all the comforts of home."

"I don't think so." Maura nudged them with a toe and ventured uneasily. "They're probably full of, well, things. Like spiders." She hated spiders. This naturally had been a source of great merriment to her vampire friends.

Nick shook out four of the large quilts, revealing nothing but dust. "You're the only living thing within at least fifty feet."

"Ha, ha. It's only afternoon, I don't wanna go to sleep." But he'd already arranged the quilts in what he hoped was a comfortable pile, and fished in one of the duffel bags to pull out a couple of the blankets they'd brought with them. Finally he added the pillow she'd forced upon him in the trunk.

"There you go. Nap time. No whining." He took her hand and steered her to the improvised pallet, and before she could protest he picked her up and put her down in the center of the bedding. "There," he tucked a blanket around her.

"I don't _need_ a nap, Bats," Maura continued to complain, but already the warmth of the cocoon Nick wrapped her in was making her a liar. He lay down next to her.

"Yes you do. And after eight hours locked in the trunk, I crave a little company." He pulled her blanketed form into his arms and settled them both on the pillow. "I promise not to let you oversleep."

"And miss what?" she asked.

He kissed her as her eyes slid shut. "Anything." Not having had a great deal of real rest himself, Nick fell asleep soon after Maura.

* * *

When Nick woke the first thing he saw was Maura silhouetted by the moonlight as she stood in the open barn doorway. She was holding it ajar with one hand, apparently looking outside for something.

"Sweet? Where are you going?" When he reached her side the face she turned to him was haunted.

"Vachon. I heard him… I _felt_ him call me. I felt him, somewhere…"

"You had a dream, Maura." He'd never managed to think of a way to reach that part of her that had been so wounded by Vachon's destruction. Logic was an insult, and comfort seemed beyond his reach.

"_No,_" she insisted, " I heard him, I felt him. Nick, Divia was 'destroyed' too and she came back, isn't it possible?"

He reached an arm around her shoulders, letting her continue to scan the moonlit expanse between the barn and the house. "No, that was different. Vachon is gone; Tracy buried him next to Screed." He saw Maura's left fist was clenched tightly, as if protecting the place where Vachon had joined them that one time. He took it gently in his hands and held it between them.

"You feel him because he bound you together by blood, when you were afraid of losing him before we went away. It's a link that lasts even when one of you is gone. In my kind it can take centuries to fade. " He didn't have the heart to tell her it never actually did, but that vampires could tell whether or not the link was a reality or merely the echo of a broken connection. Maura would never share that ability.

It was as if she'd read his mind. "Then I'll always be looking for him, won't I?" She looked desperately into the distance and started to cry. "I'll _always_ feel him calling and wonder why he's not there."

Nick put his arms around her and tried to explain, "No, love, you'll remember who he was to you more clearly than any mortal is able to remember anyone they've loved and lost. It's a gift, doucette, not a curse."

"I don't believe you," she sobbed.

"You don't have to, you'll find out all on your own." He lifted her chin. "You're exhausted, you've driven this 'land yacht' of mine all day and you need to rest. Come back to bed."

"We don't _have_ a bed, Nick." She moved outside and paced nervously. "We left behind everything we've made together, what if we were wrong? We don't know anybody here, we don't have a life, or anything…"

Nick caught up with her and held her still. "We'll meet people here, we'll make a new life. It's why we came. I've done this before, remember? Please, doucette, come back inside. Let me help you sleep, okay? You'll feel better, I promise."

She sighed and let him lead her back to "bed". "I guess if you promise I have to believe you," she told him wearily. "Because you'd never lie to me." Another sigh. "Well, hardly ever."

"Hardly ever," he agreed with a smile. As they sat side by side on the makeshift pallet, Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he leaned closer to catch her eyes. "Now look at me, Sweet. Trust me. It's going to be okay."

She looked deep into the blue eyes that saw everything in her and loved her anyway. But it still wasn't the same. She knew she had Nick, for as long as she lived, but right now she wanted Vachon so badly the pain was almost physical. As he started to reach into her mind Nick saw a bewildered emptiness in her eyes that begged him to explain how the life and people she'd come to love so much could have disappeared so suddenly. There was no wise response to that, no hypnotizing it away, so in the end he didn't try. _He_ wanted Janette back, and Schanke, and Tracy. He knew how desperately pointless it was, and how impossible it was to stop wanting something just because you couldn't have it. And then he pictured Natalie, and shut his eyes as if that could block out the knowledge, and Maura hugged him tight because she understood. They sat there for a long time, not talking, not sleeping, finding solace in the dark and each other as they caught their breath in the small space between leaving behind and moving forward.


	4. Re emerging

The stranger – the very _good looking_ stranger – had been wandering from rack to rack for the better part of a half hour. Sherry had been happy to stay behind the counter totaling up the day's receipts while periodically checking out the newcomer. A tourist, probably, they're always looking for something she didn't have (even though their stock was pretty impressive, being close enough to the city to get in the new titles pretty quickly). Last Chance Video was just that, everyone's last chance for entertainment when they'd seen the movies at the duo-plex, were sick of the cable TV crap, and had run through their own collections seventeen times. This guy was probably looking for some obscure foreign title. Foreign they had, but mostly the French/Italian/Brit mainstream stuff. He was probably looking for the Russian production of War and Peace. Another reason she could tell he was a tourist (aside from the fact that she'd definitely have noticed a looker like him around this half-a-horse town by now) was that he'd come in just an hour before closing. By eight o'clock on a weeknight everyone had already picked their pleasure and were fully engaged in it. But hey, checking out a sweet eyeful like this one was a fine pastime for the last dead hour of business. Except he was the last one in, and a sure bet the last one for the night, and she'd like to get balanced out and locked up on time for once.

"'scuse me, can I help you find something?" He was so absorbed in his search for… whatever… he didn't answer, so she walked around the counter and kept going until she stood just a couple feet away. He looked even better close-up, tall and strawberry-blond, real tasty in those black jeans and leather jacket. Of course she'd noticed _that_ when he'd parked that fancy black bike out front. Not a Harley hick, for sure. "Mister? You looking for something special?" Christ, that sounded bad. She loved checking the guys out, but wasn't any kind of sleaze.

"What?" When he turned and looked at her she could see she'd been right, totally zoned out. But check out those dark blue eyes…

"You look a little lost, is all. You've been here awhile now and don't seem to be finding what you want."

Nick shrugged a little sheepishly. "Well not exactly. I don't have anything particular in mind, just looking for the right thing…" Maura had been so down in the week since they'd arrived; she'd thrown herself into arranging the stuff the movers brought and setting up the kitchen to her taste but had shown no inclination to go out and get acclimated to their new incarnation. Aristotle had had to arrange for several casks of blood to be delivered until they could find a local source, and had also sent along a crew to install a large cooler in the artist's studio. Other "tailoring" such as the blackout blinds were installed by local contractors, but anything related to his "unique condition" had to be undertaken by those known to the Community. The stuff they'd decided to keep didn't nearly fill the new house, but Maura hadn't been inclined to venture out in search of furnishings or much of anything else. Nick had to ask Aristotle to have some groceries delivered along with the blood. It didn't seem wise to invite immediate questions from their new neighborhood by requesting deliveries from local stores. While she hadn't been moody or short tempered, Maura was obviously not interested in venturing beyond their life at home. Odd, because their sometimes insular tendencies had worried her in Toronto.

"Why don't you give me an idea? Is it a special occasion or something? For a friend?" Ah, nuts, when he gestured she could see the flash of a wedding ring. Oh well, win some, lose some.

"Well we've just moved here from Toronto this past week, and Maura seems to be having a little trouble adjusting."

"Your wife not happy to be dragged to the middle of nowhere?" Sherry asked rather snarkily.

"Not exactly." Nick's response was a bit drier than he'd intended. Nobody knew them here, after all. "I mean she's just a little down, not feeling herself. We always enjoy watching movies together so I figured I'd pick out something that might cheer her up."

Sherry cast a jaundiced eye at the copy of "Cries and Whispers" he was holding. "Well not that I know her or anything, but my guess is Bergman isn't the way to go." She took the DVD from him and replaced it on the shelf. "If you like foreign films, how about this?" She retrieved a copy of Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast" and offered it for inspection. "Subtitles, not dubbed."

Nick was delighted. How could he have missed this? "No problem, we both speak French anyway." He looked at the salesgirl for the first time. She was maybe a few years younger than Maura, though shorter and brunette with deep brown eyes. "Thank you so much."

"Don't mention it. Now let's get you signed up, even tourists have to fill out the form and get a membership card."

As he followed her to the front counter Nick corrected, "We're not tourists, we're new arrivals." Remembering his manners he extended his right hand. "I'm Nick Knight, Maura and I just bought that lovely red house with the barn and studio on Cow Hill Road."

"Sherry Nadeau. Yeah, I knew the Millers had sold the place and moved to Winooski but their realtor was based all the way in New Hampshire so we couldn't get any dirt on the new owners. Which would be you and, Maura? Your wife, right?"

Nick hadn't gotten completely accustomed to their newly adopted status, so he often forgot to refer to her as his wife. "Right." He filled out the form, realizing couldn't remember his new phone number. "Sorry, I haven't memorized our phone number yet. We were hoping for cell phone service, but it seems that's not an option around here."

"Welcome to the Deep North. At least you can get Internet here."

That had been set up before they'd arrived, of course. "Here it is, best I can do for now. How much?" Having run out of cash after paying the window blind contractors, he pulled out his platinum card.

"Not _that_ much," she laughed, and pushed it away. "It's a buck-fifty for old titles. You can pay when you bring it back, and bring your phone number too."

It had been a very, very long time since Nick had lived in anything resembling a small town. "Thanks. You always this trusting of strangers?"

Sherry finished ringing out the cash register and locked the money in the safe. "You talk like my uncle Roy. He's a cop in Burlington."

"We tend to think alike. I was a homicide detective in Toronto. Maura was manager at a nightclub. It's gonna take us a while to find our rural style. No offense."

"None taken. And don't worry, it's not 'rural style'. It's that everybody knows everybody, and your life can be made hell in a heartbeat." They were standing outside as she locked up.

Nick sighed to himself. "Now that, we're used to," he muttered.

"Whoa, you just said a mouthful, Nick." Sherry looked a little more closely at Nick. He really did seem like a nice guy, married or not. And something was brewing inside, no question. She wondered how she'd feel in a brand new place with nobody much to talk to except a depressed spouse. "Sorry, none of my business."

"Don't worry about it, everyone arrives with some kind of baggage, right? I won't take up more of your time, thanks for the break on the forms and payment." He zipped the DVD inside his jacket and climbed aboard the bike. As he dropped it forward and got ready to gun the engine, Sherry told him, "No worries. And it's only baggage if you make someone else carry it."Nick cut the engine abruptly, rolled the bike back up on the stand and held the keys in front of him, staring down at nothing.

"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?" Sherry took a step toward him.

He shook his head, then looked at her. "Not at all. In fact Maura's been known to remind me of that." He didn't know what else to say.

"Look, Nick, I know you don't know me from Adam, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way or anything, but can I buy you a cup of coffee or a beer? Like the song says, take a load off."

This forced a smile out. "My name's Nick, not Fannie."

"That's okay, I ain't Carmen or the Devil, myself. C'mon, the sidewalks roll up early here but Ernie's is still open. Just a couple blocks." Nick glanced at his watch. "You can use the bar phone to call home. Hey, moving's tough. Take a break and meet some of the locals. Then when you can pry your wife out of the house _you_ can introduce her around."

The invitation appeared so genuine, and her estimation of his situation so accurate, he agreed. "Lead on, Sherry. It's always good to find a local guide…"


	5. Re connecting

Ernie's was bigger than he'd expected, though he had to admit he'd figured on some dinky one-horse town tavern. Lots had changed in small-town life since he'd actually resided in one. There was a ball game on the wide screen TV on a far wall, and a gathering of men and women were arrayed on stools, backs to the bar, watching. In between were a dozen or so unoccupied tables, and a few banquettes along the walls. At the far end of the room, under the wide-screen, was a small raised stage. This must be a local social center, he thought.

"Hey, first things first," Sherry called to the patrons. "What's the score?" It was mid-April, and the season had just started. One of the men, a balding guy who looked to be mid-30's, announced, "Sox 6, Jays 2, bottom of the 8th. Kicking Canadian butt again, thank you very much!"

Nick stifled a smile as Sherry shot back, "Go Sox," then she turned to Nick a little embarrassed, "that's Red Sox. No Yankees fans allowed here. Everybody, this is Nick Knight. He and his wife Maura just moved into the Miller place up on Cow Hill." She nailed Doug with a sharp look. "From _Toronto_."

The offender shrugged. "Everybody's gotta be from someplace. Sorry your butt's getting kicked."

"I'm not much of a ball fan," Nick admitted. "Maura's from Boston originally, though, so you might find her a likely convert." Funny, it occurred to him he didn't know if she had the slightest interest in sports. Like so many other everyday details it just never had come up in the intermittent drama of their lives.

"Not a ball fan?" asked a blonde sitting next to Doug. "Christ, Sherry, where did you _meet_ this guy?" But she wore a friendly smile. "Don't mind us, Nick, we'll grow on you."

"Like fungus," cracked the bartender, whose tall, dark looks reminded Nick eerily of Miklos. "What'll it be? First drink for newbies is on the house."

"I'm good thanks," Nick answered, shifting a little. Now the bartender questioned Sherry.

"A _teetotaler_ who's not a ball fan… shit, Sherry, you bring me any more customers like him I can hang up the 'Closed' sign for good!"

"Shut up Mike and gimme a Number 9, will ya? And pass the phone over, Nick needs to call home." A silent chorus of potential smartass comments were displayed on the faces at the bar. Funny, the notion of people treating him like one of them made Nick feel he'd get acclimated sooner than he expected. "Don't even think it, guys!" Sherry warned.

Nick took the offered cordless phone and suddenly remembered. "I can't remember my number." Mike took the phone back, dialed 411 and announced Nick's name and address to the recording, then wrote the number down on a bar napkin and handed both the napkin and the phone back to Nick. "There you go. Phone home, ET." But he said it with a smile. "Go on in the kitchen if you want some privacy," he indicated a door at the outer end of the bar. "Light switch is inside the door on the left."

Nick took the phone into the unlit kitchen, not needing the light, and dialed the still-unfamiliar number on the napkin. It was picked up on the third ring.

"Knight and Logue, this is Logue, who are you?"

"Hi there. I'm getting to know a couple of the locals, from the video store and a place called Ernie's. I won't be long."

"Hey. Okay, I'm just hanging out reading."

"I thought you were gonna troll the internet for furniture."

"I did. I even found a couple places in town, real handmade stuff." She could sense the relief on the other end of the phone before he even spoke, so she added, "I'm really trying, Bats. I know I've been kind of your own personal black cloud the past few days. It's just, I dunno."

"Just a little adjustment anxiety. I know I've said I've done this a thousand times, but I don't take it lightly. I know it's a wrench for you, for a dozen reasons you don't have to explain because I understand them all. There's no rush, Sweet, we have all the time in the world. And as Sherry said, now I'll be able to introduce you around myself."

"Sherry?"

"Sherry Nadeau, from the video store."

"Boy, you're lucky I'm not the jealous type. Just a week in town and already the ladies are chatting you up."

He laughed quietly. "I'm lucky for more reasons than that. And I think you'll like her, she doesn't seem all that different from you. And you'll like the movie she helped me pick out, I promise. There's a few other people here too, watching a ball game. In fact the Boston Red Sox seem to be beating the Toronto Blue Jays. This seems to be a baseball crowd."

"Been awhile since I was in with that kind of crowd… okay then enjoy getting acquainted. I'll see you when you get here."

"You sure you're all right?" It was harder to read through her deflective skills when they weren't face to face.

"I'm fine, honest. I'll leave the porch light on. I kind of like having a porch light to leave on, even if you don't need it to find your way in. Ride carefully, the life you save will definitely be somebody else's."

"Very funny. I love you Maura."

"Love you too, Bats. 'Bye."

When Nick returned the phone to the bar, Mike had pulled a pint from one of the taps and Sherry took it from him. "Tab me, right?"

"Sure. And when you pay up I can take that vacation in Aruba."

She rolled her eyes and led Nick to a table across the room. "So, take a load off, Fannie." They both sat down, Nick smiling over his shoulder at those assembled at the bar who were studiously watching the screen beyond their table.

"They're harmless. And don't worry, they can't read lips unless you're saying 'my round'." She took a long sip from her beer. "Sure I can't buy you one?"

"No thanks, really. I have some rather specialized allergies. Like almost everything. We take care of my food at home, it's the only way to deal with it."

"Wow, bummer. But your wife, Maura, she share those? That how you met, at Allergies Anonymous?" Now that she was no longer in store management mode, Nick noticed his "guide" was more relaxed and inquisitive.

"No," he laughed, "we met the conventional way, introduced by a mutual friend." He paused. "We lost touch with her some time ago." He was trying not to volunteer too much, but it had been a long time since he'd been engaged in quiet conversation with a willing listener other than Maura. Or Janette, or Tracy, or Nat, or… everyone he'd lost or left behind.

Sherry saw the shadow cross his face. "Look, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I'm not all into digging out people's dark secrets. I meant it when I said you look like you got a load to carry."

He shrugged. "No dark secrets," none he was about to divulge, anyway, "Maura and I both suffered some personal losses recently. They piled up fast, and didn't leave much to hold us in place. So we looked for a new place." He looked around them, and gestured to indicate more than the bar. "This seemed like a good place to start over, so here we are." He noticed Sherry's expression had lost its animation, becoming serious.

"You're not talking about financial losses, are you?" she asked quietly and added, "not that it's my business."

"It will be sooner or later, I guess, since we're going to get to know our neighbors. It's what I want anyway, and what Maura will want soon enough. I told you I was a detective in Toronto."

"Right. Oh god, you said homicide, didn't you? Did it finally just get to be too much?"

"It was getting there for a while, I guess. But my partner got killed in the line of duty a few weeks ago…"

"A few _weeks_ ago?!" Without thinking Sherry reached out and put a hand on Nick's arm, then withdrew it self-consciously. "I'm so sorry. Were you together for long?" She knew from her uncle the kind of connection partners had.

"About a year." He thought for a minute, then figured why not? Like he said, they weren't exactly dark secrets. "She'd replaced my previous partner. We'd been together for 8 years when I lost him in the line." Suddenly Sherry appeared near tears. "I'm sorry, Sherry, I shouldn't unload all this. After a while it becomes part of the landscape."

"But not really." She sniffed, blew her nose on the bar napkin. "My uncle's a cop, remember? Burlington ain't much compared to Toronto, but its crime is plenty urban. That just sucks, that's all there is to say about it. I'd consider a change of scene too, after that. But you said you both had some losses…" Nick nodded and smiled grimly.

"Maura worked in a club, a popular one. That's where we met in fact, the original owner was an old friend of mine. She and one of the bartenders became very close, almost like brother and sister. I'm sorry to say he was murdered just a few weeks before Tracy was shot." Sherry didn't bother to ask who Tracy was, she'd figured it out by the look on Nick's face. "So you see, we both decided it was time to move on. Janette, Maura's original boss and also a close friend, had already left town by then and the new ownership was a challenge."

"Don't I know how _that_ is. The video store just changed hands a few months ago and the new boss was a real pain in the ass until he got broken in by the rest of us. Lina, that blonde at the bar who threatened to grow on you, she works days. There's another guy, Christopher, he does most weekends."

Christopher? Nick jumped at the name. "Sorry. Another friend of Maura's, his name was Christopher, managed a video store in Toronto until... well until he didn't." Their lives were beginning to sound so much like a clichéd soap opera tragedy he decided not to share the knowledge of Christopher's demise. "He moved away," he added, grateful Sherry didn't question him further.

"Small, Twilight Zone world, huh?" She'd finished her beer by now, but wasn't much in the mood for another, especially when her new acquaintance wasn't drinking. And after what he'd just told her she felt more than a little bit guilty for keeping him away from home when all the bruises must still be so fresh. "Okay, what say I walk you back to your mean machine and you get on home? You can come on by the store some day this week to pay me off. I'll get your phone number from information, just like Sherlock Mike."

Nick squirmed a bit. "Well there's another allergy I should mention… sunlight."

"You burn bad? Local market has SPF 70."

He shook his head emphatically. "I _char_. There isn't an SPF high enough to prevent it." And how.

"Wow. Allergic to food and drink, allergic to sunlight… yikes, I'm consorting with a _vampire,_" she laughed wickedly.

Nick managed not to flinch, instead countering mildly, "You wouldn't be the first to accuse me of that."

They called their goodnights to the still-assembled baseball fans, who variously accused Sherry of running around with a married man, skipping out on the tab, or else simply told Nick they were glad to meet him and would see him again soon they hoped.

"Nice people," he told Sherry as he retrieved his helmet from the handlebars and mounted his bike again. "Can I give you a lift somewhere?" Maura's helmet sat on its custom locked hook on the rear rack.

"Nah, I just live a few blocks from here and it's a nice night for a walk. _And_ it's a very safe neighborhood, the whole town in fact."

"I can promise you we will both find that a refreshing change. Good night Sherry, thank you for being so kind to a stranger with a sad tale to tell." He surprised her by leaning over to kiss her cheek.

She shifted awkwardly. "Hey, nice to meet you. And welcome to Peacham, where all sad tales turn for the better. Bring your wife next time, if she can handle the posse," she jerked her thumb in the direction of Ernie's.

"Trust me, no worries there!" He jumped on the starter and roared off as Sherry ambled toward the house she shared with her brother Eric. She couldn't remember the last time she met such a nice guy and didn't even mind he was unavailable.

* * *

Nick undressed quietly and looked down at the sleeping Maura, who had turned in early. She hadn't been sleeping terribly well since their arrival, though their conversation tonight had him hoping that would soon improve. True to his prediction the enormous platform bed had proven much too big for their country home, so they'd simply dragged the mattress into the master bedroom after consigning the frame to the barn. The barn and the main part of the house had been built in 1837, a time when living spaces were far more intimate. Nick had been surprised to find the change from the loft much to his liking… he'd become accustomed to the stylishly expansive spaces and spare lines but didn't notice how cold they could seem until they began arranging things here.

He knelt on the mattress and crawled under the covers behind Maura, taking a certain pleasure in the casual coziness of it all. Some things being unchanging, Maura stirred as he spooned her back against him.

"Mmm, hi," she greeted fuzzily, twisting her head back to kiss him. "Nice people?"

"Very. It's gonna be okay."

"You said that before," she reminded him in a drowsy voice.

"Yeah," he gave her a squeeze and kissed her ear before whispering, "But now I _believe_ it."


	6. Closing distance

"Sorry for the wait Mrs. Knight, I'm all ready for you now." Angie took a few steps closer to her new customer. "Mrs. Knight, all set." Still no response. She consulted her appointment card again to double check. "Maura?"

Finally a name clicked, and Maura snapped from the Boston Globe in which she'd been buried. She turned her attention to the plump curly-headed young woman who stood in front of her. "Oh? Great, no problem. I'm not in a hurry."

Nick had been out and about several times among his new acquaintances from the video store and, by extension, Ernie's bar. Maura on the other hand had been fairly task-oriented in her travels: grocery shopping, discussing with a local woodworker the design of some furniture she and Nick were having made. She'd been friendly but not very forthcoming, and certainly not inclined to socialize. She'd never been all that great with strangers except under duress or desperation. In the end it had taken a "casual" (in reality cleverly calculated) observation from Nick to drive her out of the house and into town for something more than a quick errand.

"Mm, the racing stripes are fading a bit, Sweet," Nick had observed one night. "There must be _someone_ around here who can keep your head fine-tuned."

_You bastard_, she thought. While not typically a slave to appearances, Maura was unfortunately a slave to her hair. She'd _liked_ the look she'd achieved when Nick had left her on her own. Even Schanke had expressed some enthusiasm for it. But everything was different now, and it felt like time for a change. If her hair was demanding maintenance, so be it. Having no better inspiration she'd decided to return to her original color, however distantly recollected.

"You must be a newlywed," the stylist observed as she directed Maura to her station. "The new name just doesn't register for awhile, right?"

Maura covered her embarrassment with a smile and a nod of agreement. "I guess not. We've been together awhile but the name takes getting used to." She extended her hand, remembering Nick's advice to connect with her new neighbors. He'd been making a far greater effort and she was finally being shamed into following suit. "I still think of myself as Logue."

"Well I'm Angie Lawrence, nice to meet you. So tell me, what would you like today?"

"Wipe out the streaks to start," Maura told her. "I'm feeling a longing to return to my original hair color."

Angie expressed some surprise. Though her professional instincts informed her of some obvious "technical enhancements" in this newcomer's hair, some shade of red would seem to be the natural. "What was that, then?"

God, it had been _so_ long… Maura had settled on red at a very early age and never relinquished it. Gazing around the salon, she saw a little boy who was getting a basic little-boy haircut. "That one, there. That's about it." It was a toasty brown color, just a hint of auburn.

"Really? Well you sure picked a good shade as an alternative, it goes great with your complexion."

"Irish-American covers a lot of ground, I guess. I just think it's time for a change… or a return."

Sorting through her color swatches Angie commented, "New life, new look, makes sense."

Sitting up straighter in the styling chair Maura inquired, "Has word been getting around already, or are you just psychic?"

Angie blushed a bit at Maura's blunt inquiry. "Sorry. Small town, news travels."

"Sherry Nadeau?"

"Yeah, we go back a bit." Looking suddenly concerned she added hurriedly, "no gossip, really. She just said your husband had told her about how you came here, and it sounded a little harsh, and well changes bring other changes…"

"It's okay, Angie, I get it. Nick's a lot better at getting established than me. Sherry seems to have been first contact, so to speak."

As she combed back Maura's hair Angie assured her, "Oh I hope you didn't get the wrong idea! Sherry's real friendly but she'd _never_ put the moves on a married man."

It was hard to disagree without shaking her head. "It really didn't occur to me, he told me all about her from the first time they met. If it's one thing Nick's terrible at, it's doing the wrong thing… he'd be the world's worst philanderer."

First impressions settled, Angie's professionalism kicked in. "So is color the only change? Your ends are a little ragged."

"Now that you mention it…" Maura's hair had grown a bit longer than she liked, but the just-below-the-shoulders length hadn't quite gotten to the point where it got all frazzled and stringy. Nick seemed to like it, but it was more trouble than it was worth. "Yeah, give it a good cut." She turned herself sideways to the mirror. "How about something smooth, just a bit of layer near my face, cut just above shoulder length and curled under? I'm sure I can get an iron somewhere around here."

An approving nod. "That would work real nice. Okay, Maura, just relax and we'll give you a new look for your new life. Your Nick will love the new you."

Well, maybe "love" was too strong a word.

* * *

"What do you mean, your 'natural' color? It's _always_ been red, with or without stripes!" Nick was fairly stunned when he came upon Maura, who'd gone out long before he woke, and was confronted by her new 'do. "I mean, I like the new style," and he ran his hand through the newly shortened and thicker softness to prove it, "but this can't be your _real_ color?"

Maura gaped in disbelief. Three-plus years of living and sleeping and use-your-imagination together… he had to be kidding. Or blind.

"You _can't_ be serious!" she exclaimed. "You mean after all the stuff we've, well, _done_," she rolled her eyes suggestively, "you never noticed I wasn't 'natural'? Christ Nick, I figured out _you_ were a natural blond the first time we got below the neck!"

He was undeniably caught out. "I'm sorry, I guess I was too distracted by 'stuff'," he gave her a smouldering bedroom look, "to notice the _important_ details. Anything else you care to divulge? False teeth, colored contact lenses?" He stalked closer to grope her, then peered in her ear. "Digital surveillance devices?"

Laughing, she pulled away. "Very funny. I guess there are some things even blood won't tell you." When the phone rang Maura reached it first, shooting Nick an "aren't you proud of me?" look as she answered, "Knight residence." Responding to Nick's concern that their new life as a married couple should be more convincing, she'd backed off on her "maiden name" use without bothering to debate his old-fashioned instincts.

"Hi, you must be Maura. My name is Sherry Nadeau."

"Oh right, hi, just a minute he's right here," she was about to hand the phone off to Nick when the voice on the other end called, "_Hey_ wait a minute, I called to talk to you too. We're having a d.j. at Ernie's tonight, charging a cover to raise some money for the animal shelter. Nick's been getting used to us here, but I don't think he should have to dance alone. And he said he's looking for a new career, _everybody_ will be here, lots of connections."

"Who is it?" Nick mouthed silently.

"Your girlfriend from the video store," Maura mouthed back with a wink. Then she said into the phone, "I don't think so, I'd love to meet you guys sometime, but I'm not much of a mixer. I'm sure Nick's told you…"

"He told me you'd be a hermit if you were left to your own devices. So you're not going to be."

Just then Nick snatched the cordless phone from Maura's hand. "Sherry? Hi. Whatever you're proposing, as long as it's decent," it was his turn to wink, "the answer is yes. It's time the princess descended from her tower," he stared forcefully at Maura, who could tell that her chances at remaining a hermit had just run out. She gestured a surrender.

"That's _queen_," she shouted for effect, and could hear Sherry's laughter coming through the phone.

"Lemme talk to her again," Sherry told Nick, who handed the phone back to Maura. "So, tonight at 9:15, because I lock up at 9:00."

Maura was shocked. "Even on a _Friday_?"

The loose laughter rang out again. "Honey, _especially_ on a Friday! You just come as you are, climb on that fancy 'cycle behind your sociable husband. Unless you want half the women in town hitting on him."

"You mean the half that haven't hit on him already?" Uh-oh, that didn't sound right. "Whoops, I didn't mean _you_."

"Don't give me too much credit… it's not like I started out with pure intentions! See you tonight." The line went dead, and Nick looked questioningly at Maura as she laughed and replaced the phone on the antique candle stand she'd picked up in town a few days ago.

"What?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, nothing," she walked by Nick casually, pausing to run a hand around his waist, then pressed against his ear to whisper, "Your friend just told me about her impure intentions toward you."

"Oh, sure."

Maura sighed in mock frustration as she headed for the kitchen. "_Why_ are hot looks always wasted on the clueless?"

Nick followed her into the kitchen and stood by as she rummaged through some of the still-unpacked boxes of odds and ends that she'd shoved into the mud room closet. "D.J. dance party, sounds like, just after 9. Raising money for an animal shelter…" she re-surfaced and blew some hair out of her face, then went to look through the painfully-well organized cabinets for the sixth time that day.

"Sounds like you might have fun if you're not careful," Nick observed then finally had to ask, "_What_ are you looking for? Maybe I've seen it somewhere… whatever it is." True to his promise before they'd left Toronto, he'd been content to stand back and let Maura arrange things to suit herself. Not surprisingly, the results also suited him.

She shut the last drawer and turned to him with a furrowed brow. "I can't find any of it, Nick, I even looked in the cooler in the studio." The walk-in closet sized cooler was stacked with bottled blood, and another cask under the bottom shelf, enough to hold him for a while until they figured out how to get a local source. The empties they stored in the barn.

"Find _what_? What could be so important?"

"The magic elixir. You know, your custom hot sauce-thermostat control. I never really paid attention to where you kept it before, but even if Natalie made huge batches of the stuff it couldn't last _forever_. I never thought of that… what's gonna happen when you run out?" The prospect of him returning to his swings from cold to fiery depending on feeding schedule wasn't appealing, and it would complicate his coexistence with other mortals as it had before. She couldn't understand why he was just standing there, smiling at her. Smiling? Was he crazy?

"What are you smiling at? Do you _like_ the idea of running hot and cold again? I kind of got used to you being warm and, well, if you must know… _cuddly_." She almost felt embarrassed to say so. Even if she found the stuff now, they'd never find another source for it… her mania returned and she was about to set off on to search the rest of the house when Nick caught her in his arms and nuzzled her neck.

"Cuddly, huh?" he teased, "I wonder what the Enforcers would think of _that_?"

She pulled back. "Nick this is _not_ funny. When you run out of that stuff…"

"I already have," he admitted, managing to keep a straight face.

"Ah, shit! How long ago?" Maura was mentally gauging how many nights before the Big Freeze Out returned.

"About a month and a half." The only response he got was bugged eyes and an open mouth.

"You did _not_."

"Did too." He buried his face in her again then looked her in the eye. "Any complaints?"

The wheels spun in Maura's head, along with thoughts she didn't have to express aloud. If after a couple of years of steady consumption Nick didn't need to consume the elixir mixed with blood to regulate his body temperature, that had to mean that his vampire metabolism had somehow learned to manufacture its own. Which meant… his physiology was capable of adaptation and change. "Like a homeopathic remedy," she did speak the last thought out loud. The wonder of it was written all over her face, and a million unspoken questions rushed through her head.

"I know, Sweet, it raises a lot of complex possibilities and questions."

"You didn't tell me."

He touched her face gently. "There was a lot going on at the time, remember? And before you ask, I didn't _have_ to tell Natalie, did I? She's the one who made it for me, so of course she knew."

_Of course she knew._ What else could have given Natalie the added incentive, a catalyst to revive a long-dead hope that Nick might become what she wanted him so badly to be? It didn't take long, even with "a lot going on", for her to recognize the possibilities. And how it must have jumpstarted Nick's long-slumbering desire for mortality. Maura knew him well enough to know the desire could be mastered, but never vanquished. He was right, though, about all that had been happening, and Maura couldn't fault him for not telling her at the time. Still, she turned away and headed toward the stairs, hoping Nick hadn't had the time to read her consternation. This kind of bell not only could not be un-rung, the echo could last forever.

"Where are you going?"

She stopped halfway up and turned with her most winning smile. "To find the proper descending-from-the-tower attire, that's where. If you can become warm-blooded, the least I can do is become sociable."

Much as she hated to admit it, Maura was recognizing some truths about their relationship that only fear could bring into focus. The knowledge of Nick's changed chemistry put a whole new perspective on his and Natalie's last night at the loft and wakened a fear Maura had never felt before. There _were_, in fact, things Natalie had given Nick that she could not. And that last night proved there was a point of no return for Nick, where the longing that would never abandon him could erase Maura from his mind entirely, if only for a few moments. It was jarring to discover that things between them would _not_ necessarily "find their own way", no matter how often she and Nick had told each other they would.

Nick quietly dialed the number of the video store. When Sherry answered he stepped into the kitchen and told her, "Well done. I don't know what you said, but it worked."

"I just told her half the women in town would be hitting on you if you showed up alone. So she's really coming? Great! It's no exaggeration that more than a few people were beginning to think that wedding ring is just shark repellent. Or worse, that you have an imaginary playmate."

Out of jokes, Nick confessed, "Really, I appreciate this. Maura's never been very good at what she calls 'starting from zero' with new people. Not shy, exactly… I don't know."

"Why ask why? If she could show up in Toronto on her own and meet you, and make friends like you told me about, I think all she'll need is a jump start. See you guys later."

Maura trotted downstairs dressed in the same jeans and green v-necked t shirt she'd been wearing when she went up. She missed Nick hurriedly switching off the phone and nearly throwing it back on its stand.

"Wow I never noticed how similar your outfits are," he cracked.

"Yark, yark. I'm figuring out that this is the first time maybe ever that I'm just meeting people, well, just because they're there, you know? No agendas, no survival mode. Sherry said come as you are, so here I are. And _why_ are you grinning like a loon? Somebody's gonna lock you _up_ and then you'll be in serious trouble!"

Nick swept Maura into his arms and landed them both on the sofa (the one she couldn't bear to part with that fit perfectly, if incongruously, in the living room across from the fireplace). "I was in serious trouble from the moment Janette introduced us," he admitted. He gave her a kiss, then a nibble under the ear, then jumped to his feet and looked himself over. "I think maybe it's time for me to come as I 'are' too. Or how I'd like to become again… be right back." He flew up to the bedroom. The only drawback to their new home, Maura mused, was that they couldn't fly extravagantly upstairs as they did at the loft, from the living room to the gallery outside the bedroom. A worthy tradeoff, she decided as she looked around the room at the new environment that was gradually taking shape. This time she hadn't inherited it, it was being built from who they were together.

"From city cop to country…" Nick's voice preceded him down the stairs.

When he appeared and came to stand in front of her Maura finished in a weak voice, "Studly hunk-muffin?"

"I believe that's 'hunky stud-muffin'," he corrected, doing a slow turn and asking, "so do these jeans make my butt look big?" His favorite line -- and move -- to flip her switches.

She was speechless. Or maybe she was breathless. True to his word after their return from Boston (a lifetime ago?) Nick had held onto his "blue collar couture", though he seldom wore it. She was _so_ grateful now that she'd persuaded him to bring it with them. For their casual night out he'd changed into faded jeans and a soft blue chambray shirt with turned-back cuffs, well-unbuttoned (be still my heart) to reveal the top of a smooth white three-button "long-john" undershirt, likewise unbuttoned. And brown leather work boots, what Maura considered the male equivalent of stilettos in that they that lifted him an inch or two taller and made his long legs look even longer. The universal working man's uniform, not a stitch of black in sight. As good as Nick looked to her wearing anything – or nothing – at all, Maura firmly believed if he never wore anything but Working Man's Uniform she would die a happy woman. After she had her way with him six ways from Sunday, that is.

"What say we stay home tonight, and I'll measure your inseams," she nearly drooled on her feet as she stood and reached for him. He dodged back and away with a teasing smile.

"Oh, no, I'm not _that_ easy. You gotta take me out dancing first!"

It was just after 8:30. "Look, you'd better go feed yourself because it could be a long night," Maura advised.

Nick wrapped a denim arm around her and used his other hand to tip her head to the side. "My pleasure," he growled. This time it was Maura who jumped away.

"No way, you gotta take me out dancing first!"

"Hoist by my own petard," Nick lamented unconvincingly. "Get your leather, we're taking the bike. I'll be back in a flash." He strode out the front door and went across the dooryard to the studio where his blood supply was stored. They planned to set up a concealed fridge in the kitchen of the main house, but for obvious reasons it would have to be a do-it-yourself affair. They hadn't gotten round to it yet so Nick visited the studio for feedings that didn't involve Maura, occasionally bringing a bottle back to enjoy late at night.

Maura had grabbed both their jackets from the front hall closet when the phone rang. She answered it, not bothering to glance at the caller i.d. After all, only a bare few of the locals had their number.

"Maura Knight," she announced pleasantly. She'd been practicing her new name in order to get in the habit. Aristotle had done some complex work to create their digital "marriage" and what with immigration concerns (the Canadian border being less than 75 miles away) Maura figured it was best to bow to at least a minimum of tradition. There was no response from the caller beyond an intake of breath. "Hello? This is the Knight residence, who are you looking for?" Not so strange to get a wrong number at a new address, but obscene phone calls after barely three weeks? It was then she took a look at the caller i.d. display, and very nearly dropped the phone.

"Maura. So it's true, you're married?"

After taking a second to catch her own breath, Maura replied, "On paper, or should I say on microchip. Aristotle set it up to beat immigration." Another span of silence. "You sure didn't waste any time, Natalie. How did you find us?"

"It wasn't all that hard, since you did it the mortal way. Metro, city and provincial records, U.S. I.N.S., I just connected the dots. But Nick didn't exactly leave a forwarding address."

"I know. He told me all about it, the letter and everything else." She couldn't resist sharing that. No more secrets, she knew Natalie had heard that before from Nick and her both but didn't want to leave the impression that even that last near-miss at the loft was an exception. The truth was he hadn't actually told her what was _in_ the letter, just that he'd tried to say goodbye as gently as possible.

"Is he there? I just wanted to, that is, I wanted _not_ to leave things misunderstood." As if there was even a razor-thin bit of room for that, Natalie thought ruefully. But he'd had the last word, after all that had happened, and it wasn't fair. He should know how _she_ felt about it, too.

For half a heartbeat Maura moved to transfer the call to the extension line in the studio. No, for a quarter of a heartbeat. For a nanosecond.

"He's stepped out for a bit. What do you need, Natalie?" She honestly hadn't intended to sound the way it did, but at least it was close to the truth.

"I need to talk to Nick. When will he be back?"

It's been said that the space between right and wrong can be measured in the time it takes to choose truth over lies. The time it took Maura to choose the latter was too small to measure as she told Natalie, "I don't know." Well still _technically_ true, she convinced herself. For a nano-heartbeat. She knew the difference but finally, driven by her recent loss and newfound fear she continued, "He just went out for a while." Sensing Natalie was about to force an even more obvious choice, Maura blurted, "For god's sake Natalie, give him at least some time to get his balance! Can't you do that?" Give us time, she thought, give _me_ time to get his feet so firmly planted that his present can withstand the past without a struggle.

Natalie ventured, "Maura, I want you to know…" but she didn't know what she wanted to say.

"Want me to know what, Nat? Why you gave it one last shot, why it almost worked, why I should believe it can't ever happen again?" Maura nearly shut off the phone, waving it in frustration instead as if Natalie Lambert were standing before her and could read the gesture. "Look," she said urgently, "just please, _please_, leave him alone for a while, will you? Let him settle the loose pieces, let the jangling die down, okay? I can't stop you from calling again, I can't erase every message you might leave, even if I wanted to try. But for christsake, think about it! Would Nick have packed up, taken off, and left the goddamn _country_, with me or anyone else, if he figured it could all just get sorted out with a little chat a few weeks later? He knows where to find you. Let _him_ decide when it's time."

"You're asking me to back off. To wait until… whenever. That could be any time, or never!" Natalie could discern Maura's desperation because she was awash in her own. "But you're asking me to just let it go."

This time Maura seized the truth, if only for a second. "Not asking. I'm begging you to." She was hoping that might trigger the kind of empathy that had arisen between them before, albeit fleetingly. What she got instead was as uncertain as what she was suggesting.

"This was a mistake. I should have hung up when you answered. Goodbye."

After the line went dead two women, hundreds of miles apart, trembled under the weight of the same question: what now?

As Maura laid the phone down, still struggling to process the conversation, Nick bounded in the door flushed by his feed and grabbed his jacket from where Maura had dropped it on the hallway bench.

"C'mon, woman, suit up! It's time to become part of the new landscape."

She put on her jacket and followed Nick out to the bike where he'd rolled it by the front walk. Before he could mount up, Maura seized him by the jacket front and pulled him to her. "Tell me you love me." He answered with a laugh, thinking she was extending their silliness.

"I told you, you gotta take me dancing first!" Then she yanked harder on him and the look on her face wiped the grin from his.

"_Tell me!_ Tell me it's gonna be all right, tell me this is where we belong, where _you_ belong, with me!"

He thought he understood. "It's gonna be more than all right, Sweet. We belong wherever we're together." He took her hands and unclenched them from his jacket, kissed each of them in turn, then wrapped her up in a hug. "I belong wherever you are, and nowhere else, no matter where we go." This at last seemed to satisfy her, and she looked up at him.

"Tell me." This time it was nearly a whisper.

"I love you, Maura Knight."

She smiled then, feeling more at home in the name than she could ever have expected. "Okay, then. Let's go raise some hell with the locals."

As they rode the few miles into town Maura locked tight behind Nick, around his waist and against his back, as if trying to forge them into a single organism. Natalie was a distant echo, for the moment washed from her mind by the rush of the wind.


	7. Then and now

As the wind rushing past on the ride to town cleared Maura's thoughts, it focused Nick's.

For the first time he felt like he was close to starting out on even ground in a new place. It was a realization that dawned slowly (because it had never happened before) that here he was in the kind of place he'd longed to remain in. Quiet, green, a little less complicated and a lot less populous than most of the places and incarnations he'd endured, yes, _endured_, during the past century or so. So many times he'd gravitated toward such places as this, and the incarnations that would permit them. But he'd always lived on the edge of even the most remote communities, on his own in a cottage or other such insular place, accepting the persona of a quiet and harmless eccentric. He'd become so accustomed to watching from the outside, creating a facsimile of membership in each community he settled in while guarding against the risk of being drawn in. Fearful of discovery, worried for his own self-control and knowing that sooner or later his perceived eccentricities would no longer be considered quiet or harmless, he arrived at every place calculating how long it might be before he was forced to leave it. Not so, this time.

It became easier to conceal himself among the proverbial rush of humanity in more modern times and cities, though paradoxically more difficult to remain separate in the enforced intimacy of the places and jobs he tended toward… scholarship and science bred colleagues, and colleagues invited, nay demanded, familiarity. The elimination of plagues and frequently fatal illnesses rendered the modern urban crowd less concealing than in former times. As decades passed, Nick's growing loneliness threatened to overcome his mania for the self-defense of solitude. Especially since the turning of the 20th century it had become so hard to pretend he wasn't surrounded by others who could enjoy the sense of belonging he could only struggle to remember from his past. So many expansive outlooks in modern times, so many more open minds. The pull was, in the end, irresistible.

The thinning of the wall between his guarded self and those around him had reached its extreme in Toronto. For that first time he'd let down enough defenses to connect (as best as he could, given his wretched self-image) to another, and his friendship with Natalie had helped him to begin to accept himself in ways he'd never believed possible even as they tried to leave his true nature behind. Even considering the frustration and pain it caused them both. His partnership and friendship with Schanke was even more in contradiction to his former lives; it was inarguably the closest bond he'd ever achieved with a mortal (and by far the most painful loss he'd suffered in his entire existence). By the time Maura arrived within his circle he was primed for the tipping point; once he allowed himself even the beginnings of that connection there was no going back.

For all of that, when Maura suggested they leave Toronto Nick honestly believed the only difference between now and countless other times was that he wouldn't be running away alone. Yet since their arrival, since meeting Sherry Nadeau and her friends and realizing he _wanted_ to know them and be included in their lives as much as safety allowed, Nick felt the rage to "leave behind" fade and a sense of arrival slowly take its place. Finally he was where, for uncounted centuries, he'd longed to be: in a simple and peaceful place, this time with a chance to belong there. The sensation of beginning a "life" as opposed to an incarnation was unfamiliar and even a little startling. It was also distinctly inviting. Though caution would be necessary, it was much preferable to fear and shame. An "incarnation" depended upon the belief of others in who he claimed to be. This time, if Nick could believe in it first himself, he would be closer to "life" than he had reason to expect was possible. In time he might even come to consider the blood he was forced to drink not a reminder of an evil nature but an unfortunate necessity of survival. The blood he took from Maura he would always consider one of the sweetest gifts he'd known, a source of connection and a symbol of her trust and love for him that he'd never give up willingly for as long as she offered it.

In the midst of these new and pleasant thoughts Nick was aware of the contrast of Maura's uneasiness as she clung behind him with a strength bordering on mania. It seemed to have sprung from nowhere. He'd been relieved to see her relaxing into their new home, making the effort to force herself out during the daylight hours to make the beginnings of acquaintance with the community. He knew that in general her "tendency to be a hermit" didn't come from anything darker than a little awkwardness with strangers, something countless mortals were prey to. He remembered her hesitation that first time they'd gone to a Metro function, how she'd hung on a little tighter to his hand and held back for a second at the door. This was probably something similar, he figured, and nothing a little reassurance wouldn't fix. As countless times before Nick found himself amused by the irony that of the two of them he was the one who had to persuade Maura to mix with mortal company.

When Nick had rolled the bike up on its stand outside Ernie's Maura immediately unclenched from him and slid off the seat, hooked her helmet on the back, and turned toward the bar figuring Nick would follow. She was determined to be a grown-up this time, not the sniveling wimp she was when Nick had had to drag her to the awards dinner so long ago. She found herself drawn up short as Nick stuck his hand under her jacket and hooked his fingers in her back belt loop, pulling her back to him.

"What?" she managed to turn to face him as he pulled off his own helmet and swung his leg over to lean back against the seat, one hand firmly still locked onto the back of her jeans.

"I want you to know something," he was smiling earnestly as he looked down at her, "before we go in there and make our place with other people. _Make_ it, not 'find' it, or fake it. If you still have any doubts at all that this was the right thing to do, the right next step to make, I want to tell you that this is the first time that 'moving on' feels like going _to_ instead of running from. For hundreds of years, Sweet," and when Maura looked nervously around to see if anyone was nearby to hear he turned her face back to his, "whenever I moved on I was always leaving behind, bad decisions, bad acts, bad memories. I want you to know that _I_ know this time it's different."

"But we did leave behind some _really_ bad things," Maura began. Nick was shaking his head.

"But we didn't _cause _them. More importantly, _I _didn't cause them. I didn't resurrect Divia, or cause Tracy to be shot. I didn't kill Natalie, when you and I both know that not so long ago I could never have stopped myself once I'd gone that far." Finally he wasn't blaming himself for every tragedy he encountered. He thought, he _hoped_, it would please her.

And Maura hoped the flash of anger she felt inside didn't show on her face. Natalie, again Natalie! _There wouldn't have been anything to stop if you hadn't gone that far in the first place._ And if Natalie's life _hadn't_ been in danger, what then? Happily ever after as a mortal with the woman who'd "saved" him from himself and from life with someone who accepted him just as he was? Maura tried to ignore the questions that rang in her head, but they wouldn't leave her alone. She knew nothing good could come from bringing them up, especially now. They weren't reasonable questions anyway, just a chaos of anger and frustration with question marks tacked on. God she was so _tired_ of being reasonable. But he'd left with _her_, hadn't he? Not Natalie, he wanted to be with _her_, he'd been working hard to persuade her to feel at home in their new life. He loved her, she knew it even when his eyes weren't on fire and his mouth wasn't drawing her life into him... but then _why_ had he…

_Stop. _Maura retreated from her inner arguments and focused on the eyes smiling gently into hers. She saw no divided longing there; in fact there was a certainty she was quite sure she'd never seen before.

"It really is different for you this time, isn't it? Things have changed that much for you." _Please, please, if we both believe it enough it might be true_.

"Things have changed that much _in_ me. Maybe there wasn't a reason before now, maybe I just wasn't ready."

This was getting too serious, too deep-and-meaningful for comfort. "Well I'm glad I caught you at the right time," she told him flippantly.

"Me too." Suddenly Nick remembered the night of his Aristotle-inspired 'proposal', and what Maura said after she put the wedding ring on his finger. "I now pronounce you stuck with me, too." Gripping Maura around the waist, Nick pulled her off her feet into a kiss so deep and meaningful it shoved every sharp-edged reproach from her mind. She reached around his neck to hold on, forgetting where they were, forgetting everything but his arms around her and the velvety heat of his mouth. Funny how, when doubts got the better of her, the less logical elements of their connection could take her over. She never heard the footsteps passing them by on the way to the door of the bar.

"God-_damn_, the last time I saw married people carrying on like that…" a male voice commented (from a very great distance, it seemed to Maura).

A female voice advised, "I don't think they can hear you."

The first voice finished, "Well they weren't married to each _other_ I can tell you that!" This was followed by the sound of the door opening and closing, allowing the sounds of music and voices to spill out and then be shut off.

Maura felt Nick smile. Those were her favorite kisses of all. As much as she loved seeing that heart-melting smile, she loved feeling it against her skin even more. When finally he raised his head from hers she confided as if keeping a secret, "That's okay, neither are we."

"I won't tell if you won't," he promised conspiratorially. "Okay, time for you to meet the natives."

As she took his arm and they walked to the entrance Nick cracked, "If I'm lucky maybe you'll wind up drunk and willing."

Nick didn't know it yet but he'd be proven only partly right, and anything but lucky.


	8. Breaking cover

He'd seen her drunk just twice before. The first time was champagne-induced silliness, at the precinct Christmas party hosted by Janette at Raven. That memory always made him smile. Dancing, then flying, then making love in front of the fireplace. The second time was darker, when he'd fed her a double shot of Jack the day after her friend Christopher was murdered, hoping to dissuade her from going to work. Both times the effects seemed to burn off quickly; whether or not it was because of her unusual chemistry was something he'd considered but soon forgot to ask. Tonight she was feeding herself the bourbon, and he doubted she'd get off so easily as before.

They were sitting at one of the clusters of pushed-together cocktail tables at the far end of the bar as the d.j. (Mike, who was taking a night off from tending bar) took a break. Sherry, Doug, Angie who happened to be Doug's girlfriend, Christopher the other video store employee(who, Nick was relieved to see, was both short and blond and didn't resemble the Other Christopher in the slightest), Robin the blonde who'd been at the bar that first night, and her husband Bobby were leaning in various postures around the tables. Maura was mixing pretty well with the others, and unlike her introduction to Nick's Toronto friends this group asked only the most casual sorts of questions. Of course, these people weren't motivated by the presumed intimacy of previous acquaintance with either one of them. Right now Bobby was offering to buy another round.

"Uh-uh, right here!" Maura exclaimed, pointing at Nick, "he'll buy it. Money is _not_ his problem, but we'll both be glad when he finds a new job." She rolled her head to one side to look at him. "Anything but police work, thank you."

"How are you at excavation?" Doug cracked. The balding Red Sox fan Nick met on his first night at the bar did well work, road grading, all manner of earth moving.

"I've been known to dig for clues," Nick offered with a grin.

"Among other things," Maura snickered into her latest empty glass.

"Now that you mention it, there's a couple of pieces of equipment in our barn. A small bucket loader, and something else. I haven't looked too closely at them but they're covered up pretty carefully so I think they might be persuaded to run." He grinned and slid his chair up closer to Maura's. "What do you think, Sweet, maybe I should try my hand at fighting topography instead of crime."

"You really know how to drive those things?" Sherry asked. "What does a cop know about road grading?"

The drinks had arrived, on Nick's tab, and Maura grabbed her fourth glass of bourbon, her second neat, in the hour and a half since they'd arrived. "Hell, Nick's done all _kinds_ of things, his résumé would strike you blind." He slipped his arm around her and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"Let's not bore them with my whole history," he addressed their companions but the comment was intended for Maura. She was getting a little bit too loose for his comfort. When she shot him an impatient look and leaned away he reached a hand out to slow the progress of her latest full glass. "And maybe you'd better pace yourself, you're a little out of practice." He was smiling, but she didn't miss the warning in his eyes.

"Ooooh, let's not get into _drinking_ habits, darling…"

Nick, who had politely declined all offers, hastened to explain, "My allergies limit my options. It can be a challenge." Maura was smiling wickedly.

"But we do all right at home, I assure you," Maura drawled, her eyes on him. It was obvious to everyone she was enjoying his discomfort, though they read it as good natured (and drunken) teasing. Nick leaned his head close to hers and kissed her cheek, but at the same time whispered, "_Sois sage, ne s'oublies_."

"Oh, _jamais_," she muttered in response, almost bitterly.

Suddenly wondering how many of their new acquaintances might understand French (being so close to the Quebec border) Nick was relieved to hear the d.j. announce his return by asking for requests.

"I'll be right back," he told everyone, but Maura grabbed him by the collar.

"If you ask for that fucking BeeGees song again I'll _kill_ you."

Another kiss to camouflage a rather sharp, "You wouldn't be the first," and Nick was off to speak quietly to the d.j.

"Hey honey, you okay?" Sherry asked. "He's right, you're really knocking 'em back. Maybe you need to get back in training before you try to play with these party animals," she indicated Bob and Doug. Robin and Angie had been sticking to a couple of beers each even though everyone lived within walking distance.

"Relax, Sherry, it's my annual bender." She wasn't trying to be a bitch, and didn't want to piss off their new neighbors. But her mood had been growing edgier all night. Well maybe not all night, just since… since the phone rang that last time. Though she'd thought having a few belts might mellow her mood, Maura realized (in a very distant and hazy way) that the booze was instead focusing some issues she'd long shoved aside for the sake of being reasonable. Christ, she was sick of being "reasonable".

Maura watched as Nick returned to the table, and she thought of how every woman in the place probably was mourning his unavailability. He'd always had that affect on women, even without the magic whammy. He seemed not to notice, and she actually believed he didn't. She wouldn't have worried if he did. The one and only woman who worried her was hundreds of miles away, and he'd never pretended not to notice what she'd always wanted from him. He just pretended it didn't matter. Suddenly Maura missed Vachon so painfully it struck her like a tidal wave. He'd always been able to calm her down when her various demons got the better of her. It didn't take much, not from him, just a pair of raised eyebrows, a shake of his head, and a "Luna, will you get a grip?" Then, in very few absurdly simple sentences, he'd tell her exactly why whatever was twisting her in knots wasn't really a problem at all. And she always had to say "duh", and wonder why she hadn't thought of it herself.

But Vachon was gone now, and the only other who knew her that well was Nick. He'd never had Vachon's knack of cutting to the bone of whatever she was struggling with. He knew it, too, and Maura knew he'd been grateful that she had Vachon to turn to when the noise in her head got to be too much. Some kinds of love, like hers and Nick's, got in the way of reason. Hers and Vachon's never did. _Stop. _She managed to gulp down the last of her drink as Nick reached for the glass.

"Pffflllt," she announced, mostly for the amusement of their companions.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Nick told them, then took Maura's hand and helped her to her feet.

"_Viens __á__ danser, mon ange_," he invited with his most persuasive smile. In spite of the darkness she'd been harboring, a crowd of butterflies burst into flight in her stomach. Damn that smile, that voice.

"He's French," she explained to the others as she followed him to the dance floor, "he can't help it." Her phrasing was beginning to take on the pained precision induced by four double shots of bourbon (two neat).

Angie whacked Doug on the arm. "Why can't _you_ be like that?" she accused him.

"_Ow!_ I flunked French, remember?" and everyone cracked up, just before heading to the dance floor themselves. All but Sherry, who joined her brother Eric who was barbacking for Mike's stand-in tonight. He'd maintained a careful distance from the others or, more precisely, from Nick and Maura. They stood close together, and spoke in low murmurs.

"Are you sure?" Sherry asked him.

Eric nodded. "He is, for sure. But her…" he looked his sister in the eye, and she could see the surprise on his face. No, more than surprise.

"What about her?"

"She's like me."

Her eyes snapped wider. "You're _sure_? How can you tell?"

"How can I tell about _him?_ I don't know _how_ I know, I just do."

Sherry shook her head in wonder as she watched Nick and Maura dancing. He was offering her considerably more support than the other men needed to give their dance partners.

"How could they be…" she turned back to Eric and told him nervously, "whatever you do, keep your distance. I mean, he seems fine as can be with the rest of us, who knows why, but just to be safe…"

Eric gathered some glasses on a tray and headed for the back room. "You don't have to tell me twice."

* * *

**Translation from French:**

_**Sois sage, ne s'oublies: **_**Be careful, don't forget yourself**

_**Jamais: **_**never**

_**Viens **__**á**__** danser, mon ange**_**: come dance, sweetheart**


	9. Seeing things

Maura stumbled again, and Nick tightened his arm around her waist to steady her. Again. He could hold her with her feet off the floor if need be, but didn't want to attract attention.

"So do you approve of my choice?" They and the others on the dance floor were slowly circulating to Phil Collins' version of "Groovy Kind of Love".

Maura hung onto him a little more closely, aware she was fast dissolving in a sodden haze. "Mmm, a lil' hokey, but works f'r me," and then something in the lyric "my whole world could shatter" forced a gulping sigh from her, and she pressed her face even more deeply into his neck and shoulder.

"What is it, sweet? I know something's wrong, can't you tell me?" Aside from everything, of course. Since that first night of Vachon's destruction, after the blind rage and self-inflicted bite that luckily hadn't needed stitches, Maura had held her grief pretty closely. She'd busied herself with their arrangements and he'd probably let her take over more than she should have. Since their arrival Nick had managed to divide himself between letting her have a little space and keeping a close eye on what she might not tell him she needed, but whatever was churning inside her tonight (in addition to an ocean of eighty-proof) seemed to have come on rather suddenly. At first he thought it was just unease at meeting a new group of people, but the carelessness fed by her unexpected appetite for alcohol was unfamiliar… and more than a little worrisome.

Right now she really figured she _should_ tell him, but it wasn't that simple, was it, the phone call combined with the news about the elixir combined with so much mixed up stuff, it all wound together in a roiling knot that was too much to untangle. Especially when she was barely able to speak, let alone coherently.

"Dunno." At least it only took two syllables, Maura thought in a cloudy sort of way, even if he could tell it was a sorry lie. She gathered her wits as best she could and raised her head to ask, "You gonna drive a bulldozer?" She was relieved to see Nick's perplexed smile that always seemed to greet her when she wasn't making sense and he wasn't inclined to press her further. Not that there'd be much point at present.

Nick figured she was one shot short of passing out cold. "I could do worse. That work happens at night too, especially road work. Why not? Now that I know you have a taste for working class men…" his smile warmed. He kissed her and immediately regretted it, unable to prevent a grimace at the taste of bourbon. Taste? Hell, she was _marinated_ in it.

"Scuse _me_," she slurred and pulled out of his arms. She was too far gone to take it in stride, or even remember his loathing of bourbon.

Nick reached to steady her. "Maura, come on, you're way over your limit. Let's sit down, okay?"

Maura managed to shake off his hand without falling on her ass. "Oh, you're gonna say be _reasn'ble_, right!" She stood swaying in the middle of the dance floor, the song ended and everyone watched as she spat in a surprisingly clear voice, "I'm sick n'tired of being fucking _reasonable!_" Her voice rose on the last word in an explosion of pure rage. As Nick stood in dumbfounded silence Maura shoved past the others and stumbled out the rear exit. Nick followed but was intercepted by Sherry.

"May not be a good idea right this second," she advised.

Nick shook his head, "I don't know where this came from, but I can't just leave her…" he looked toward the back door.

Sherry stood her ground with a grim smile. "Hey, no woman wants to puke in front of an audience, even if it's her husband. I'll give her a couple minutes to cool down and check and see she's okay." Against his better judgment Nick agreed and went back uneasily to join their companions, who'd returned to their tables looking a little stunned. Even so, there were no wise remarks.

"Jack and new-town stress can be a real nasty mix," Angie tried to reassure him. "Some things come out when you least expect them."

"I suppose you're right." He knew Sherry shared his and Maura's recent trials and losses with her best friend. Still he couldn't stop staring toward the back door. There was more going on here than unresolved grief.

* * *

Outside, Maura was fulfilling Sherry's prediction. She'd made it as far as the trash cans and fallen to her knees, seeing double and too nauseous even to barf though she could feel the hitching begin in her gut.

"What's that saying… ah yes, there goes the neighborhood."

The familiar voice, that perfect balance of cognac and acid, drifted through the roaring in her ears. Through the crack of one clenched eye she saw two black boots inches away from her face, the hems of fine black wool trousers skimming them just so. Maura forced herself to turn her head enough to look up, and the two or three pale and overlapping blurs were just as unmistakable as the voice and couture.

"Oh, fuck _me_," she moaned, just before ejecting a rush of Jack Daniels, nachos, and onion rings all over hand-sewn Italian leather.

"Thank you, no," the smooth voice curdled in distaste. Maura shut her eyes again and crawled back a few inches, resting her head on the ground. Moments later she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Vash?" she slurred vaguely.

"It's Sherry. I think you're way past your party limit, hon. Don't worry, I don't want to know why you picked a fight with your man, god knows men give us plenty of reasons at the drop of a hat. You've both been through a lot lately. Here," she helped Maura out of her crouch into a half-kneeling position and handed her a wet towel. Maura had trouble focusing on it, so Sherry tipped her head to the side and wiped her mouth and face. "There you go. Here, drink some of this," she pressed a glass to Maura's lips.

"Nooooo," the latter protested. God if she had one more drink she'd die right here.

"Just water, get rid of that nasty taste."

She managed a few sips, then rolled onto her back. "Nick…" She could almost focus on Sherry's face where she leaned over her.

"He's inside. He's worried about you. And pretty confused, I think. Okay if I send him out?"

Maura nodded. Big mistake, as the whole world went whirly. Sherry saw the threat of a spasm and rolled her onto her side.

"Better stay off your back for a bit. I'll send Nick out." She set the glass next to Maura's head and went back in the bar. Nick met her halfway to the table.

"Oh my, but your wife is well past shitfaced," Sherry told him.

"I figured that much out myself. Did she tell you anything?"

"You mean like why she screamed at you? I didn't ask. I don't think she could complete the sentences anyway. Go on out, she's calmed down now." She stifled a laugh. "You could say she's fully sedated. I left her lying on the ground with a glass of water, she's waiting for you."

"Well it's not as if she'd get very far if she didn't. Thanks, Sherry." He glanced back at the rest of their companions, and a collection of strangers who were talking quietly.

"Don't worry about them. The ones who met you won't make judgments, and the ones who haven't can go fuck themselves."

"Thanks." He was grateful to have stumbled onto a group of such understanding souls. Before he could get out the door Sherry called after him,

"Hey, who's Vash? When I first got out there she called me that."

Nick stopped, glanced toward the exit and then turned back to Sherry. "Remember I told you about that friend of hers who was murdered? That was him, Javier Vachon." He sighed to himself, then explained, "He was very good at helping her get untangled when things got the best of her. Better than me, I'm afraid."

Sherry stepped up and put a hand on his arm. "Hey, that's what best friends are for, to take up the slack. My guess is you'll catch on fast. Better get out there before she wanders away."

He had to laugh. "That would be something to see about now."

The universe had just begun to slow its mad spin behind her closed eyes when Maura felt him next to her. This time she knew who it was. "Nick…" she whimpered.

"Right here, sweet. Can you sit up?" He took her hand and slipped his other under her shoulder.

"Sloowww," she warned, and let him lift her carefully upright. She squinted enough to see one of him. The alcohol was beginning to burn off (Nick's hypothesis regarding her biology being correct) but the large and speedy doses she'd consumed would take longer than usual to dissipate. "Screamed at you," she lamented.

"It's okay. Now everybody knows who wears the pants at our house. Now I _have_ to drive a bulldozer to regain my manhood." The humor was lost on her. He leaned closer and kissed her hair. "Never mind. We can sort it out later, okay? I really do want to know what happened here."

She nodded very carefully. "'kay. Not now, I can't…" her eyes shot open and Nick heard her gulp. She would have jerked away but he knelt behind her, holding her head as she lost what was left of the evening's overindulgence. Then he held the glass so she could take a little water and instructed like a solitious dentist, "Spit." She did, and leaned her head against him. "Home, take me home."

That was a problem. "You can't ride in your condition. Come on back in and maybe we can get you a ride."

"_No!"_ she exclaimed. She absolutely did not want to show her drunk-ass self to the people upon whom she was sure she'd made an indelible first impression. "No," she pleaded again, more quietly. Nick handed her the glass.

"All right. will you be okay here for a minute?" She nodded, again very carefully. "I'll be right back." When he rose he looked down at her, sitting flat-assed in the dirt, miserable and looking as confused by the whole thing as he was. No more giving her space, he decided, once she was recovered he planned to find out exactly what triggered this burst of self-destructive emotion. As he turned to go back in the bar Maura called out,

"Wait.. make sure he's gone."

He turned back, concerned. "Was someone out here with you?" He knelt by Maura again. "Who?"

"L'Croix." She could hardly believe she was saying it.

Nick looked quickly around, focused his senses. No, not even an echo. Forgetting for the moment that LaCroix could mask himself when he chose, Nick assured her, "I think it was your imagination, you've had a _lot_ to drink."

She was not convinced. "No. He was here. I puked on his shoes." This drew a laugh from Nick, and he gave her a hug and kissed her forehead.

"I take it back. It was a dream come true. Sit tight."

But she knew she was right. LaCroix had been there.

"Where's Sherry?" Nick asked Doug. Aside from him and Angie, just about everyone else had left. "Maura can't double on the bike with me, I was hoping to get her a lift out to our place."

"Glad you patched things up," Doug grinned. "Don't be thinking we're all gonna be repeating this all over the county."

"I appreciate that. She's not really like that usually."

"Oh it'll get talked around, for sure," Angie laughed, "but not by _us_. Just by those people you say that you don't know yet. But don't worry, between the bunch of us you'll break even. Sherry's in the kitchen with her brother. He was barbacking tonight. She'll be out in a minute, and I know she'll be happy to be designated driver."

"Good to see you, Nick, and believe it or not it was good to meet Maura too. How 'bout next time we get together over _coffee_. And give me a call if you're serious about doing some work for me, I can never get reliable guys who want to do the night jobs. Miller kept those machines in prime condition, he just didn't want to drag them along with him when he retired."

In the kitchen Sherry wasn't sure she heard Eric right. "What do you mean, do they have someone else with them? I told you, it was just Nick and Maura came tonight. Like you said, him you're sure of, and you think she's like you." However that is, she thought to herself. They'd never quite figured it out, except enough to believe in things they'd only watched in movies when they were kids.

Eric was shaking his head. "I don't like it. If it was just them tonight… there's no other way to explain it."

"Explain _what_?"

"Sherry," Nick's voice drifted in from the bar. "Do you think when you're through you can give Maura a lift home?"

"No problem," she called back, "it'll just take a minute for me to walk home and get the car." She turned back to Eric. "Explain what?" she repeated.

"There's two of them."

She shook her head, not understanding. "Two of them?"

"Tonight just after Nick's wife took a nosedive out the back door, I looked out the window to see if she was okay. There was someone there, tall, fancy black clothes, pale as death and with a good reason to be."

"You mean he's like Nick?"

"Yeah. Except he doesn't want to mix in. Look, you tell Nick to wait here with you and his wife, and I'll get the car and come back to lock up with Mike. Follow Nick to their place and come straight back home."

"Okay. You really worried about this?"

Eric shrugged. "I dunno… if he wanted to make trouble he'd have done it already. My guess is he knows our new neighbors and is more interested in them than the locals."

Truer words were never spoken.


	10. Questions, unasked and answered

"Feeling a little better?"

Maura was slouched against the headrest with her face hanging out the open window. The cool early-autumn air was clearing her head and somehow settling her stomach. It had been a long time since she'd drunk that much, she only just now was remembering the experience. She'd have a different sort of hangover in the morning, or what passed for the "morning after". Exhausted, and inexplicably depressed. The please-kill-me part was still processing but she knew from experience it would be over soon.

"Yeah, sumthin like that." Her verbal skills and mental clarity were still in flux. "Where's Nick?"

"Up ahead. I don't know how much you remember, but no way you could ride that high-speed bike with him. I'm giving you a lift home in my ratty old Subaru."

"Sorry… shouldn't have come I guess."

"Hey we've all been there. Some more than others."

A few moments of silence followed. Sherry was dying to ask the questions that she figured Maura may not answer cold sober. How long had she really been with Nick? Three-four years she'd told them at the bar, but that could be part of the charade. It didn't make sense. Since Eric had managed to survive the attacks of a limited series of immortals – neither one of them could bring themselves to use the descriptive "vampire", it was just too out-there – she and her brother had figured out that there was something about his biology that acted as a lure, a death sentence to the unwary. Like crack, that's what his blood was, and like addicts anywhere the immortals that'd found him were relentless in their desire but somehow seemed terrified to be discovered. By whom, Eric hadn't been able to tell. He just said it was as if they were looking over their shoulders as they struck, and his observant nature had saved his life the first time. So the second and third times he knew enough to react, not as if there were another mortal but as if there was something else beyond mortal that caught his attention. And, thus, theirs. Thankfully after about a half-dozen incidents in the past three years the attacks had stopped, as had Eric's awareness that predatory immortals might be nearby. Until tonight.

"So, you seem a little different, you and Nick. He's pretty low key and you're a little more party-oriented, no offense. How did you ever get together?" She knew the "official" story, of course, but wondered if there was more to it.

"Gofigger. Don' think I don' wonder myself." Suddenly Maura struggled to face her driver. "Hey, you ever love somebody so much it shamed you? Like, you swore you'd never, then you were, and it scares you?"

Sherry cast about for a suitable reply as she strained to see the taillight of Nick's bike. Never mind, she knew where the (former) Miller's place was. She thought she heard some code in Maura's question, and fought her instincts regarding Nick.

"He hurt you, honey? If you don't'want to go home I can turn around right now."

"_No_!" Maura jerked upright in alarm. "Never, he _never_, not like that." Well, that wasn't entirely true. There was that time, that drug that morphed him into a monster... she trailed off. "Other ways, yeah, sloppy I guess, he didn't ever _mean_ to."

"Then what did you mean by being sick and tired of being reasonable? I thought maybe it meant putting up with shit you didn't want to put up with."

Christ, she was tempted. Sherry seemed like the type that would listen and process and maybe not judge. Like Janette, maybe, but less cynical. "Yeah, but who doesn't, huh? It's complicated…"

"Isn't it always."

Sherry decided not to force the issue. Maura may well have been in the thrall of a powerful immortal, or maybe Nick was in thrall to her, because of her odd condition. Not that Sherry, or Eric for that matter, had learned much about it aside from the very obvious. That immortals couldn't detect Eric's nature if he kept far enough away, and that if he didn't the consequences were dire. But if Eric could sense Maura was like him, why couldn't Maura do the same? Or maybe she had, and was keeping quiet about it, not knowing anyone else was aware of it. God, there were so many questions she wanted to ask! Eric was only 23, where Maura appeared to be in her late 30's. She must have some sort of knowledge and understanding that hadn't been available to Eric, if only because of her association with Nick. That in itself launched a raft of questions. At the top of the list: how did she survive? Why hadn't he killed her by now? Assuming what they said was true, that they'd been together for over three years, how did either one of them survive the other? And next on the list of questions, though perhaps even more important: how and upon whom did Nick feed? Certainly one mortal couldn't sustain his needs. But none of the random disappearances that surrounded the presence of the few other immortals were evident since the Knights had arrived in town. Did he feed on animals? And why could he be seen in the mirror behind the bar? Were there stereotypes in vampire lore, as there were in every other kind of society?

Sherry fought the urge to laugh, picturing herself marching into the library and requesting a Tory field guide to North American vampires. In spite of the surreal character of the situation, Sherry's thoughts kept returning to a very common sort of curiosity regarding Nick and Maura's domestic relationship. If either of them was "slave" to the other in any sense, it certainly didn't show. Their behavior and body language appeared no different than that of any other couple she could remember. Even Maura's drunken outburst was pretty normal, given the recent events Nick had related. Assuming of course even one word of it was true. He seemed so _normal_ in most ways; she still found it hard to get her head around Eric's revelation of Nick's true nature. But Eric had never been wrong before; experience had been a harsh teacher. By the time she'd pulled into the dooryard of the red Cape (and noticed how unchanged it appeared, as though she'd expected bars on the windows, or a moat) Sherry decided to take things as they came. Nobody had been harmed since their arrival, and the newcomers were behaving like any others had in the past. If anything Nick seemed friendlier than most, and Maura… well, she was off to a rough start.

Maura was jolted from her doze when the car stopped. "Wha…" she struggled straighter, fumbled for her seatbelt, looked around in confusion. "Where's Nick?"

"Right here." He'd appeared as if from nowhere. In fact he was being very careful _not_ to tap into his "unique skills"; Sherry just hadn't noticed him jogging down the walk. What she couldn't figure out is how he got there on the bike so much sooner than they had; he hadn't seemed to be speeding at all. Not worth wondering about, she decided, with so many other questions rattling in her mind. Having opened the passenger door, Nick was leaning in to help Maura with the seatbelt.

"Thank you, Sherry, I'm sorry to have put you out of your way," he was saying.

"No problem, these things happen. God knows they've happened to me from time to time… I'm glad I could help. I think the fresh air helped, what do you think?" she asked Maura.

"Yeah, my head's less mushy." Her voice was clearer and she felt not so much drunk now as mostly burnt out.

Nick faked a dodging move. "It's your stomach that worries me."

"Fuck you, Bats."

Bats? Sherry had to stifle a giggle. Now if that wasn't an appropriate nickname, nothing was. What she wouldn't give to be open about what she knew, but it wasn't the right time. If there'd ever be one. And things might _not_ be what they seemed, in any case.

"Sorry, Sherry," Maura apologized, "Romeo and Juliet we ain't."

"You look okay to me. Right, I'll see you later."

Maura got out of the car with Nick's help, taking an experimental step to lean against the open window. "Shitty first impression, I guess. What's the usual number of days before someone can show their face again after a night like tonight?"

"24 hours should do it… this is the town that elegance forgot. 'Night, Knights."

"Thanks again, Sherry, we'll be in touch," Nick told her. "C'mon, you," he smiled at Maura. "Time to sleep it off."

Their conversation trailed behind them as they made their way to the front door.

"Well you were hoping I'd get drunk, remember?"

"Well you're one for two… you forgot about the 'willing' part."

When she'd backed out of the drive Sherry took a last look at her new acquaintances silhouetted by the light shining out the front door. Maura had stumbled, and Nick steadied her. They didn't seem to be speaking. Maura looked up at Nick and he pressed his forehead against hers then scooped her up in his arms to carry her inside. Seeing them there, Maura's arms wrapped around Nick's neck and her head resting on his shoulder as he carried her inside and toed the door shut, Sherry's doubt's about the nature of their relationship unraveled. Nobody could fake something like that, especially when they believed nobody was watching. She decided she'd tell Eric there was nothing to fear from these two.

Nick carried Maura up to the bedroom and sat her down on their new custom-made four-poster. No canopy, just four graceful finial-topped columns tapering up from the hand-carved head and footboards. Maura had recovered enough to notice a shift in Nick's demeanor, from confusion to solicitousness, as though he'd been the one who'd behaved like a frat party refugee. Underneath she could sense something harder.

"Nick? You okay?" she asked as she changed into the pj's he'd laid out on the bed. He wasn't changing yet, but seemed to be waiting for her to get settled. She noticed he'd also filled a small glass pitcher with water and had put it on the nightstand with a glass.

"I'm fine, Sweet. Don't forget to drink up, it'll help you feel better. " His medical incarnations hadn't been limited entirely to life-and-death situations; he'd attended to more than a few hangovers over the centuries.

When she downed a glass and crawled into bed he sat down next to her for a minute, looking at her with a curious mix of affection and chagrin. Before she could ask him again, he bent to kiss her and said, "I'll be back in a minute, I'm just going down to make sure the shades are shut and the lights off, okay?"

"Mmm, 'kay." She was asleep before she finished the words.

Nick rested his hand on her head for a moment. "Reasonable, you're right about that, " he said quietly. "Reasonable about my doubts, reasonable about my moods and my secrets and my mania to be who I can never be again, no matter how many people it hurt. Reasonable about my spiritual suicide attempt, and my unannounced waltz through the world with LaCroix. Reasonable when Schanke died and all I could see was my own pain. Reasonable about everything, as much as you could manage. Who wouldn't be tired out by now?" He kissed her forehead, carefully, so he wouldn't wake her, then lit the pillar candle (some habits would never be broken) and went downstairs.

After turning off the outside and living room lights, after checking the shades, Nick returned to the candle stand in the front hall where the recharge indicator of the cordless phone cast a wash of red light mortal eyes would barely have discerned. To his eyes it shone like a floodlight, in more ways than one. When he'd hurried in the door after riding home he'd bumped the small table and knocked the phone to the floor. When he'd retrieved it the number glowing in the caller i.d. display decoded the events of the previous few hours like a nine-digit decryption key. He thought he'd been clear, he thought she'd understood what he was asking. He thought he was being reasonable. But one-way conversations have their limitations, leaving both parties secure in their own expectations.

Nick listened for a moment to discern any sounds of stirring from the bedroom upstairs. Hearing none, he picked up the phone, thumbed the caller i.d. display button, and pressed "call".


	11. Missed connection

_Hi you've reached Natalie's phone, I'm at work or am otherwise engaged, please leave a message and I'll get back as soon as I can. If this is Nick, I'll get back even sooner._

Beep.

He couldn't think of what to leave in a short message, so Nick switched off the phone and returned it to its stand, and headed upstairs. He found Maura sitting about halfway up, shamefaced and cold sober.

"I should have told you."

He sat down a step ahead of her. "Why didn't you?" It wasn't as if he didn't know there were complex issues involved, even if he didn't know their every nuance.

"I don't know. Okay, I do. I didn't know how to tell you that wouldn't end up with me getting us both pissed off. Because you know, we both know, it's not as simple as a phone call. And it was too soon, right away was just too soon for me to deal with it in a sensible way."

Nick leaned back against her knees, taking her hands as she reached around his shoulders. "You mean 'reasonable' don't you?"

"I mean sensible. 'Reasonable' was keeping my mouth shut when I shouldn't have, and that was never your fault. 'Sensible' means filtering out all the unnecessary stuff and just being able to tell you what's on my mind without all the neurotic embellishment. I haven't always been very good at that." She rested her chin on the top of his head. "When something's really twisting my head I got used to having help to sort some things out first, before I ran my mouth and sounded too crazy."

"I always could tell when something was churning inside, and I didn't ask because I could tell when you weren't ready. But I also could tell when the churning stopped, because it was always after you'd spent time with Vachon." There, he'd said the name. "I wish I could help you sort things out like he did." She hugged tighter, and kissed his hair.

"He just had the gift, he could stare me down and tell me to stop being stupid and then tell me exactly _why_ I was being stupid. More often than not the churning stopped because I figured out there wasn't anything to 'churn' about in the first place." She laughed quietly, and was echoed by Nick. "I can't see you being able to call me out like that."

"I suppose you're right." Nick turned sideways so he could face Maura. "What do you think Vachon _would_ tell you, if he was here with you tonight? I know you two were close enough so it shouldn't be too hard." He kissed her right palm and waited as she closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again to look him in the eye.

"I think he'd tell me that instead of angsting over exactly what 'possessed' you that night at the loft, and what it meant, I should just ask. I think, no I _know_, that he'd say that a change in your biology that someone else helped you achieve doesn't mean as much as I'm making it into. But to me it means other things can change too, things that only one of us thinks are good."

He sat up straighter, frowning. "I told you, everything, all of it. I told you we were both not quite in our right minds, everything that had happened..."

"I know, I know. It 'weakened' you, and you did things you wouldn't otherwise do. But you know where that left me, especially after finding out you suddenly have your own central heat? It leaves me believing that I'm just one weak moment away from losing you, losing _us_, for good, because if your body can change itself then maybe everything else can too."

Now Nick stood, frustrated. "How many times, Maura, how many ways do I have to say it before you'll believe me? I don't love Natalie, not the way she wants, I never could, not now, maybe not even if you'd never come along. What I was reaching for that night was redemption, the way I used to see it, mortality, I was so tired of losing people along the way, I thought maybe what she suggested might work and I wouldn't have to anymore."

"Well we already know it wouldn't work with me, don't we?" That was unfair and she knew it. Maura's blood was far different from that of the typical mortal. _She _was different.

She followed him as he walked away, around to the back of the house to stand at the edge of the lily pond. "I knew that, Nick, I knew it when you told me about all that weakness and desperation. What I didn't know was _why_ you still want it. Why is what we've got still not good enough? What do you suppose might have happened if Natalie hadn't nearly died? What if it had worked? How often would you have gone to her, how deep would you have gone with her, to get what you wanted? Because we both know it wouldn't be as clinical as a bottle of O positive, it couldn't be. There's something else in that legendary 'cure', the return of the connection, the mortal connection, _that's_ what I should have asked about that night, I should have found out right then and there. Would whatever you might be able to get from Natalie really replace what you'd be losing?"

Nick just didn't understand her. If he were mortal he'd be what Maura was, they could be more completely together than he'd ever thought possible. "What would I have lost, Sweet? Okay, it was a mistake, I know that, but if it had worked, if I'd become mortal, we'd be alike you and I, that last space between us we've never managed to cross would be gone. Why does that scare you, why does my still wanting it seem to hurt you so much?"

She was shaking her head. "What makes you more a part of me than anyone else could be, that's what we'd be losing, what makes us belong to each other, completely, equally." She was surprised how clearly it came to her now and she moved closer, looking up into his face as if proximity would force him to understand. "If I lose you to mortality, that perfect link would be gone forever," unable to stand the confusion on his face Maura grabbed hold of Nick and threw her head back, pressing his face into her throat where she knew he'd feel her blood pounding. She held him there for just a second before she felt his grip on her tighten, his mouth begin to open, his kiss turn to the warming electric sensation of his fangs as they descended and joined them together, drawing her into him and reaching himself into her.

"See," she whispered, fighting the rapture that usually rendered them both silent but for growls and whimpers, "this is who we are, this is _what_ we are, there's no space left between us, _why_ do you want to leave that, leave me apart from you?" She was crying without realizing it, "I'm not _mortal_," she insisted.

As his embrace strengthened and he sank them down onto the damp grass, she repeated in French, "Je n'suis pas mortelle, je suis _Prisée_…" Even if they'd never come together in any other way, even if they never did again, this alone was what set them apart from any others, it was this she was determined not to lose. She didn't care about anything else, let Nick sleep with a hundred women a week so long as this joining was theirs alone. She couldn't imagine living without it because that would mean she was living without him, even if they were together for a hundred years.

He drank as much as he dared, somehow hearing her though the pulsing in his head, but more importantly feeling and understanding everything she'd held inside tonight come to him in her blood. Finally he lay quiet against her, wrapped around her with his face resting in the hollow of her neck, the place he always went to when he needed to feel whole. Fool, he'd never considered what she'd just told him, he always thought their natures divided them, and believed she did too. Maybe she had believed it too, once.

"I wish you'd told me, that night, or before," he spoke quietly, moving up to lie next to her, wiping the tears and hair from her face. "I don't suppose I'd thought of that, not the way you just described it. I knew what being together meant to me, but not to you." She smiled a little weakly.

"Communication has never been our strongest suit, has it? Except for this," she touched the corner of his mouth where a smudge of blood remained. "Love we're good at, sex and blood and forgiving we're good at, it's the other stuff that we seem to stumble on."

"That's okay, we've got time to learn." Nick nuzzled his face into her neck again, planting kisses that progressed under the collar of her disheveled pajamas, "I think I'm learning more all the time, even if some things take longer than others…I'm learning to appreciate some new things," one of his hands crept to where he could move between the buttons, fingers reaching inside to explore her skin.

"Like what," she asked a bit hazily.

He paused in his nibbling and caressing to press his face against the soft fabric she wore, "Like the erotic potential of flannel…" Instead of laughing, though, he wrapped her up tight in his arms.

"I'm sorry, Nick, I'm sorry, you know I trust you, it's me I don't trust sometimes," she pulled his head up and made him look at her.

"Well there's something new that _you _can learn, then."

As they sealed their intentions with a kiss a pale lip, unseen in the shadows, curled in disdain. The curl reversed itself as the sound of a phone ringing trailed from the house."It seems 'caller i.d.' works two ways, Nicholas." The voice may well have been only a thought, unheard by anyone, its owner well hidden by more than darkness as he rose above the treetops and disappeared.

Maura let Nick lend some support as they walked into the house, though she was drunk now in an entirely different way. She held back as they passed the phone, ringing for the third time.

"Not now," he told her and led her up the stairs without even looking at the display. "I know where to find her."

"That's what I told her," she confessed, and he turned with smile.

"I know, remember?"

She laughed as he turned down the bed. "You do have a way of 'drawing me out'," and she laughed louder as he groaned.

All smiles faded as he pulled her into his arms. "Well let's just make sure I didn't miss anything," he growled and tumbled them into bed. He could tell she was straining to hear the answering machine. He took her head in his hands, effectively covering her ears and bringing her face to his in the same motion.

"Not now," he repeated. He didn't have to tell her a third time.

* * *

_This is Nick and Maura's house, and we can't answer the phone right now... leave a message and we'll get back to you._

Beep.

She had no more ready message than he had had when he called, but she could have rung again and again, all night, just to hear his voice.

* * *

**_Je n'suis pas mortelle, je suis Prisée__ - _**I'm not mortal, I'm _Prized_

* * *


	12. Unwelcome wagon

"It's time we got up, don't you think?"

"Mmm… nope." Maura shook her head negative and wrapped herself more closely around Nick where they lay in bed.

"You're kidding… the sun will be setting soon."

Maura peeked out from the covers and saw he was right, she could see the light through the upslanted blinds of the west-facing bedroom window. Shortly after they'd moved in she'd figured out that by aiming the blinds up, instead of down, the sunlight could be directed at the ceiling instead of into the room. The indirectly reflected light could brighten the room, but couldn't harm Nick. It wasn't something that had occurred to her in Toronto, but now that they weren't surrounded by warehouse buildings the sunlight had become more apparent, and important, to her. And Nick loved being surrounded by natural light; it had been so many lifetimes since that had been possible.

Now, though, Maura wished she'd nailed plywood over the windows so they could remain as they'd been since not long after their return from the bar -- and from there, the backyard. Last night, after their confrontation outside that ended in tears and blood, for the first time in so long they came together quietly, not seized with that desperate madness that had consumed them so often before, not in sadness or seeking comfort or offering reassurance but secure in each other. It was as if the many detours and endless angst and recent losses had happened to someone else. Like _normal _people, who maybe had just been apart for too long. They had been, in a way, but here was a life they'd found not in spite of who they were or where they came from, but _because_ of who they wanted to be and where they'd come home to at last. Maybe for the first time ever Maura had given in to the romantic "afterglow" that Nick had long lamented she seemed immune to; she welcomed every loving word and gesture she'd once thought of as unnecessary. Suddenly she was reluctant to give it up for something as mundane as everyday activity.

"Let it set; it does it every night. It's not like we have jobs to go to."

She was actually starting to pout, Nick could hear it in her voice and realized it was a very new inflection for her.

"Funny you should mention that," he told her as he gently pried himself from her surprisingly strong grip, "as a matter of fact I was planning on going into town and tracking down Doug to talk about that excavation work he mentioned."

"Later," she insisted, nuzzling his neck.

"Now you're stealing my lines… and my act," Nick pulled away, laughing, and slid out of bed. His clothes (and hers) lay scattered about the floor where they'd been flung the night before and for the moment he stood naked by the window, smiling in affectionate amusement at Maura's stubborn refusal to greet the evening.

It was moments like these that took her breath away. Seeing him casual and utterly unselfconscious, bathed by the subtle glow of the fading sun, he was the most beautiful thing she could imagine. His rumpled golden hair was echoed by the fine down of his arms, legs, and groin. His skin shone pale and translucent as white jade and just as flawless, unmarked by the scars of sword, dagger, and arrow he'd borne in life that his long-ago transformation had erased. An eternally youthful face that expressed so much through deep blue-grey eyes, the only part of him marked by the centuries. So painfully beautiful Maura could scarcely believe he was so completely hers, even after he'd shared the blood that joined them to the core.

"Come back," she pleaded and added, "I'll make it worth your while..."

"Hussy," Nick gasped, feigning outrage as he went to slip on his robe.

As always, the fragile moment evaporated in laughter, until next time.

"Well you knew that when you 'married' me," she reminded him as she rolled and stretched in what she hoped was an inviting manner. "Besides, after years of complaining of a deficit of warm fuzzies I've practically _buried_ you in them and now you just wanna prance off for a night with the boys."

Nick cocked an eyebrow. "I think you're mixing your metaphors." He sat on the bed, dodging her groping hands. "Come on, be reasonable… I mean _understanding_. You know I've wanted something new to do with myself, even before we left Toronto."

"I can think of something to do with yourself."

"I said _new_." He bent and kissed her, then backed away to gather up his clothes from the floor. "Don't you want me to be able to wear this stuff for real, instead of just doing the 'Village People' thing?"

"Now you're mixing _your_ metaphors… I hope! " She pulled Nick's shirt from his hands and slipped it over her head, finally dragging herself out of bed. "Though after last night I don't guess I have much to worry about."

"I aim to please," Nick winked. "Before I go I'll take a shower," he headed for the bathroom and warned Maura away with, "_alone!_"

"And you call yourself a despoiler of innocence," she griped, and padded downstairs to make some coffee for herself and get a bottle from the fridge for Nick. Absorbed in setting up the electric kettle and the French press, Maura jumped a mile when she heard the knock at the back door. The _back_ door? Cautiously she put the back light on and peered out the mudroom window. A young man stood there, vaguely familiar, though she couldn't place him.

"Yes? What can I do for you?" Instinctively she pulled the collar of Nick's shirt closer around her neck to hide the marks that were undoubtedly not completely faded.

"Hi, I'm Eric Nadeau, Sherry's brother?" Jesus, she looked like he'd just wakened her. Then again, if he was right, and he knew he was, they didn't exactly keep regular hours did they? "I'm sorry, I guess I should have called first. Can I have a couple minutes of your time? I just want to talk for a minute."

He seemed okay, but who knew? After her performance last night she wouldn't be surprised if there weren't at least one loser who'd try to take advantage of what he assumed was a shaky relationship, but this one seemed a little young. And it wasn't exactly a stone's throw to town.

"Okay." Before she unlocked the door she remembered all she was wearing was Nick's shirt so she put on the long trench coat that was hanging on the hook by the door, and cinched it like a bathrobe.

"Come in," she stood aside to let him pass, "Nick is upstairs in the shower." No sense letting him think she was there alone. He looked embarrassed.

"Don't worry, I'm not here for shady reasons, but I think we need to talk."

Now she placed him, she saw him behind the bar last night. "Ah, shit, if this is about me getting drunk and disorderly, I'm really sorry, it just wasn't my night…"

They were standing in the kitchen now, but he hadn't sat down in the chair she pulled out. "Look, there's no sense dancing around it. I'm here because you're like me, and I think we should talk about it."

Like him? "What do you mean I'm 'like you'? Not from around here, you mean?" But he and Sherry had grown up here, or so Nick had said at some time or other. He'd mentioned Sherry had a brother, though he'd never met him.

Eric shook his head. There really was no way to be casual about this, was there? "Your blood. It attracts them, it addicts them, it's like a drug. Mine too."

Shocked, Maura took an involuntary step back. "What the hell are you talking about?" she protested, brain whirling a mile a minute. He had to be jerking her around… then again how would he _know_ about the blood, the attraction, the addiction? He wasn't a vampire, that she was sure of, so maybe he was telling the truth... and if he was… oh god, he'd know about Nick too, but Nick had never met him, he'd never been within that sixth-sense range. But how could he tell about _her?_ She wouldn't know there was anything at all unusual about Eric, how did he know about _her_? Suddenly she was aware of the shower turning off upstairs, Nick's footsteps as he got dressed and ready to go out. If Nick got too close, Eric would know what he was and they'd be ruined. Or if he flew down the stairs to amuse her, or asked for a shot of O positive straight up, or... she wanted to scream, to rage. Things were finally finding their own way, why did this have to happen _now_?

She pointed to the door and demanded, "Go, you have to go, you can't do this now," and seeing he was going to try to explain further Maura grabbed Eric by the arm and dragged him to the back door. "Come back in half an hour or so… when you see the Caddy's gone from the driveway. We'll talk then, okay?" She had no idea how he'd gotten to their place and didn't care, as long as he left before Nick came downstairs.

"Okay." Eric wasn't quite sure why she was so panicked. Didn't she understand he knew about both of them? Rather than argue he did as she asked, loped out to his car where he'd parked it behind a stand of trees up the dirt road that was used as an access road to the back meadows.

Nick found Maura in the kitchen. "What's with the raincoat, Sweet? Expecting a storm?"

"Got cold," she answered a little shakily, hoping he'd take it for being chilled. He did.

"Don't worry, I'll warm you up later I promise." He gave her a bear hug and a kiss. "Hey, when I come home again I might just be gainfully employed."

"Oh good," she managed to joke, "we're down to our last hundred and fifty million. I've been wondering how we'd keep the wolves from the door."

"Try silver bullets," he called over his shoulder as he went out the front way. "I may be a few hours."

"Okay." Then she hurried to the door. "I love you!" It felt like a talisman.

He stopped before getting in the Caddy. "Lucky me. What a coincidence, I love you too." He jumped in the car and roared off.

"Lucky me," she echoed as she went back in the house to await Eric's return, hoping all that luck would hold out long enough for them to enjoy it.

* * *

As he drove toward town Nick smiled to himself. This was feeling more and more like a second chance for him in so many ways, for both of them really. That deep, hopelessly romantic part of him that was such a source of amusement to others convinced him they could be falling in love with each other again, this time away from all that darkness and pain that first brought them together. This existence came by choice, not desperation or default, and she was with him for the same reason. He was content to keep these thoughts to himself, knowing the affectionately cynical response they'd draw from Maura (though he knew for a fact she shared them). Then a voice, definitely not his own, sang in a faux Marlene Dietrich accent:

_"Falling in love again…"_

Nick's eyes snapped up to the rearview mirror. The crew-cut silhouette was unmistakable. He should have known even an overdose of high-octane booze couldn't have persuaded Maura to conjure a hallucination so unwelcome. He drove on in silence, too stunned even to pull the car over as the singing stopped and the too-terribly-familiar voice continued with exaggerated casualness,

"Going my way, Nicholas?"


End file.
